Marauders Read Harry Potter: Book One
by ipreferao3tbh
Summary: The Marauders find the first Harry Potter novel and are persuaded to read it. Curiosity killed the cat, but that's not going to stop them from trying inject humor into every sentence they read, and possibly change the future for the better. [Format will be changed to fit the guidelines better. Chapter One has been updated.]
1. Chapter 1

The library was quiet, still, with barely a fraction of the students there since last week. Most students would like to spend their last few days at Hogwarts outside, or in the common room, or anywhere else that doesn't remind them of the N.E.W.T.s they just took and probably bombed. The only students left in the space were the ones that wanted a safe space to cry uninterrupted.

Of course, if there was a student wailing at the top of his lungs with only short pauses to hiccup, then he would get nasty looks by the other watery eyed students and Madam Pince calling in the only possible people that could calm him down.

"It's alright, buddy." Remus murmured to Peter, awkwardly laying his hand on his back in a desperate attempt to comfort him. "I'm sure it really isn't as bad as you think it is."

"Yeah," Sirius cut in "I doubt you got the worst test scores like usual." Taunting, sarcastic comments is how Sirius shows his affection. Like most things, it is better used for times when it isn't pointing out a person biggest insecurity. Peter could only respond by letting out another anguished howl.

"Nice going!" James hushed at Sirius' horrified face as he rushed to Peter's side. All three felt rather out of their element but James is the only one who grew up in an environment with parents that both cared and knew about to express that they cared, so he wasn't completely clueless emotionally.

"Sirius was only teasing you, you know that right?" James took over for Remus with a much more confident hand. "None of us think you failed – hell, we all studied together so as long as you remember what we talked about than everything turned out fine."

Peter's tears took a turn into a developing panic attack when he revealed "I couldn't – remember – anything!"

"Nothing?" Remus asked

He shook his head no as the damage that standardized tests do to young students psyche slowly sinks in. Madam Pince at this point was both passionately empathic and sincerely annoyed with the loud crying that she came up to them with a small vial in her hand.

"This is the last of the calming drought I have." It was barely a gulp; the majority having been used for other student who had a mental breakdown before the potion supply started to dwindle. Still, the bright blue liquid was tempting. "I think it would work best if you find someplace less occupied."

They all agreed, mostly because they were desperate for advice, and carried Peter out the door as if they were all 16 year old's not equipped for this sort of thing.

The calming-drought only helped so much, so it was just Peter with tear streaks on his face, hands and knees shaking badly, with three worried boys trailing behind him. Remus suggested ducking in an empty classroom.

"Oh yes, bring someone just coming out of N.E.W.T.s back into a classroom." Sirius remarked. "Usually your tauntingly sexy brain produces better ideas, but I guess today it's just here tease me."

They were just wandering aimlessly down a hallway, hoping the movement would level Peter's head, before he came to an abrupt stop. "Do you hear that?"

There's an echo of footsteps. It's seconds before they find the source, but it rears it's ugly head around the corner and they see it's Hufflepuff prefect Georgie Turner. He's alright, in the looks department. Has clear skin, good hair, pretty tall. Attractive enough to be noticed out of the crowd, and is even charming if you were to ask any of them, the most upstanding heterosexuals of the school.

"I don't want anyone to see me like this!" Peter panics before rushing ahead of them into the first room he saw. They rushed in after him, completely understanding the horror of being seen by Georgie when you aren't perfectly primped to be your most attractive.

"Alright, we're alone Peter."

"Exactly my plan all along." Sirius remarked before Remus could silently stare him down from an inappropriate comment. "Where are we, anyway?"

The room was empty in the middle, with only mostly bare shelfs lining the walls. There's a single bottle with a note attached to the cork. It was lit just enough for them to read, but otherwise it was like there was a dark blue tint to everything.

"Not sure." James said, approaching it like a puzzle. "Not a classroom, too large to be a broom closet." He picked over the single bottle filled with bright blue liquid and read the note. "'For Peter'. Was someone waiting for us?"

Peter, normally the one to anxiously overthink things, took the calming drought and downed it, hoping to feel better both in the moment and about himself. It was the perfect amount to stop the shaking, not a drop over.

"Do you want to hang out here for a minute? Compose yourself?" Remus asked. "I wish there were some chairs around here . . . "

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed four individual armchairs, all of different colors. "Oh, I guess there is."

"Were they there before?" James asked before moving Peter over to the deep red one. He claimed the emerald green while Sirius sprawled himself over the rich purple. This left Remus with a warm brown.

"Not sure, but they're in all our favorite colors." Sirius said. "It's probably a trap. But a comfy one."

"Most likely."

"Absolutely suspicious."

"Don't trust it for a minute."

"Well, it can't be completely planned for us." Peter said. "Who would plan a room for us and not leave Remus a book to read."

They all chuckled, mostly happy that he's making cracks again, but the mood was soiled when Remus started to sit down but jumped back up.

"Sit on a tac?"

"No, sat on a – "he picked up a square from his armchair "a book."

"What the fuck." Sirius remarked.

"Wait, could this be?" James asked.

"The room." Peter said.

"The room where everything you could possibly need is hidden away?" Sirius asked.

"The room of requirement." Remus finished.

"This is downright the most amazing thing you have ever stumbled across while running away from your crush, Peter." Sirius said.

"I don't have a crush on George." Peter lied.

"Hey, James." Remus said, staring straight down at the book. "Listen to this title. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Silence followed.

"Wait, Potter?" James asked. "Is this about my family? Do I even have an ancestor named Harry?"

"Looks like it." Peter pointed with a steady hand to the young boy on the cover, with jet black hair happily catching a snitch. "Almost a split image, except paler."

Remus flipped open the cover and a piece of ripped parchment fell out onto the ground. James was the first one to grab it, and he read it aloud to the room.

 **Published in 1997, this is the future adventures of your son, James.**

"What the fuck is this?" Sirius asked. "Who the fuck is pulling all this together?"

 **You might be wondering who is pulling all this together, but I recommend reading the book for now. All will be revealed in due time. KNH."**

" **P.S. This is the American print. Make fun of the slang if you want."**

Between the four of them, there was an overflow of thoughts on what could be really going on. This is all a prank by someone, possibly Snivellus Snape. Except why would he do something like this? Not his style. Maybe it's an elaborate detention set up for one of their pranks. Except they haven't done anything all during testing.

Maybe it's legit?

"Should we read it?" Peter asked as Remus sat back down, chewing his lip with thought.

(Normally Sirius would find it very distracting, but now he found it mildly distracting.)

"I think we should." James is the most eager about this, almost tempted to snatch it from Remus' hand and read it, but restraining himself.

"Well," Remus spoke eventually. "How else are we going to get to the end of the mystery?" and settled deep into the armchair and starting reading to the group.

 **Chapter one: The Boy Who Lived**

"I don't like what that implies." James interrupts.

"It's just a metaphor, relax. It's for the arty crowd."

 **Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, ... thank you very much.**

"If you have to tell people you're normal, then you're not very normal." Peter says.

 **They were the last people you'd expect to be involved strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such strange nonsense.**

"They're trying really hard to convince us that they don't have a torture sex dungeon in their basement."

"Are all muggles this bland?" Sirius asked.

"Well, my mom hid the fact that I'm a blood thirsty werewolf for 11 years, so I'm gonna have to say no" Remus said.

"And both my parents successfully hid their torture sex dungeon without being this obvious about it, so I will also have to agree to disagree." Peter nods.

 **Mr. Dursley ... which made –**

"Dildos?"

 **drills.**

"Damn." James sighed.

"The fuck is a drill?" Sirius asked.

"How did you even pass Muggle Studies?" Remus asked instead of answering.

 **He was a ... mustache.**

"Just like the biker fellows in the type of bars I frequent." Sirius smirked.

 **Mrs. Dursley ... neck,**

Remus paused in anticipation of a comment from Sirius, which wasn't coming. "Aren't you going to make a sexual comment about that?"

"Don't see the point, she doesn't sound like my type."

"Of course she doesn't."

 **Which ... son –**

"Yes, because this is the exact family I imagine when you mention a loving family environment." Remus said.

 **and ... around.**

 **The Dursleys ... secret,**

"Told you. Torture sex dungeon."

 **and ... it.**

"Definitely a tortu-"

"You mention the torture sex dungeon one more time I'm going to sock you." James said, surprisingly.

Sirius drew his hand up in a defense. "Didn't mean nothing by it, mate."

Remus paused from reading and looked up with a concerned look. "Everything good?"

"Yeah," James sighed. "I guess I'm a little tense from the whole premise. I just want know about my son."

"Or if this is even really legit." Peter was always a skeptic if the information came from someone he doesn't trust, and a bit too gullible for the people he does. Why would someone give them a book from the future and only sign with their initials? Is it even their initials?

He kept his fears to himself though, not wanting to cause James to worry about anything more.

 **They ... the Potters.**

"I'm related to these people?!"

"You know what, I too would want to hide the fact that I'm related to you."

James threw a pillow directly into Sirius' face, hopefully wrecking his hair he spends so much time caring about.

 **Mrs. Potter ... sister,**

"Get better in-laws."

 **but ... husband**

"Be a better in-law."

 **were as unDursleyish ... be.**

"Is that a word? UnDursleyish?"

"Don't pretend you care about grammer now, Padfoot."

"But I always care about the words that come out of your mouth." He batted his eyes in a way that was supposed to be adorable and Remus was not approved.

 **The Dursleys ... him.**

"Thank goodness."

"Now now, Wormtail, the correct way to phrase it is 'Thank fucking goodness.""

 **This ... that.**

"I don't want to be the person who cries racist, but I'm just saying, I think they would lock their doors if I was walking across the street."

"Except you're Indian Prongs. I on the other hand – "

"The joke on your last name doesn't work when you're the whitest guy in the whole school."

"You keep saying that, but I think it's ironic."

 **When ... starts,**

"It took 30 minutes for the story to start?!"

"It wouldn't take that long if you would shut up every once in a while." Remus' pillow joins James' across the circle, which made Sirius significantly more indigent.

 **there ... country.**

"The weather is pretty unreliable that way." Peter remarked with a sense of wisdom that sentence did not deserve.

 **Mr. Dursley ... work,**

"A completely normal thing to do."

 **and Mrs. Dursley ... chair.**

 **None ... window.**

"Serious question, that's not normal for muggles, right?" Sirius questioned.

"Muggles use snail mail." Peter replied.

"They use snails?" There was a moment of silence for the three of them to figure out if he was attempting to be funny or if he really didn't know.

"It's just a saying." Remus said, eventually. "Sometimes I forget how much you don't know about these things."

James sent a teasing smirk over to Sirius as if he wasn't just as unsure, but knew better than to voice his ignorance.

 **At ... cheek,**

"I thought she was the one described like a chicken, not him."

 **and ... walls.**

"My goodness, what a brat."

"I thought we've been through this dear Wormtail, the correct phrasing is 'What a fucking brat.""

"I'm not stooping to your level."

"Harsh."

" **Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley**

"That is the completely wrong way to react to a misbehaving child." Remus sounded minutes away from starting a lecture while Sirius mouthed 'chortled?' to himself.

 **as he left**

"You guys know why that's the wrong reaction, right?" Minutes seemed to have been confused for seconds.

"Normally I love learning things from you, but could we skip that today and keep reading."

"I suppose."

 **as ... drive.**

 **It ... map.**

"They don't want to get lost, obviously."

 **For ... cat**

"It's Mcgonagall!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Not every tabby cat is Mcgonagall." James tried to reason with him.

"All lies."

 **standing ... light.**

"Of course, because light is known for disappearing and reappering maps in front of cats." Peter deadpanned.

 **Mr. Dursley ... back.**

"Staring is rude."

 **As Mr. Dursley ... mirror.**

"He's going to cause an accident if he doesn't watch the road."

"How is he supposed to pay attention to anything is Mcgonagall is present? When she's there, you pay attention."

 **It ... signs.**

"Wow, the education of cats has really declined over the past few years." James pondered.

"It's a catastrophe." Remus said bluntly causing Sirius to throw his three pillows at his head and rip Peter's out from under him to add to his arsenal.

 **Mr. Dursley ... shake**

"Hey, my kind of novel."

 **and ... day.**

 **But ... cloaks.**

"Or you could mind your business and not stress over what other people are wearing."

"Muggles don't wear cloaks?"

"Sometimes I worry about you, Padfoot."

 **Mr. Dursley ... people!**

"Imagine not having to worry about anything else other than what young people are wearing." No one was beginning to like this guy, but he was really starting to annoy Remus.

 **He ... by.**

"The judgmental language on this one." Peter t'sked.

 **They ... all;**

"'Enraged'. He's enraged because of someone wearing a cloak. Enraged."

"Do you have a point?"

"I'm just in a state of shock."

 **why, ... cloak!**

"Beautiful." James said, from his emerald green throne.

 **The nerve of him!**

"Yes! The nerve of that man to be wearing the clothes that he wants to wear! The nerve!"

"Doing alright, Moony?"

"If he becomes even more of an asshole I'm going to resort to eating the book."

 **But ... it.**

"Collecting for more cloaks, even."

 **The ... drills.**

 **Mr. Dursley ... morning.**

"Does he think about anything else than drills? Honestly, how does he even have a kid if the only thing on his brain is drills?"

"You know the saying: Just lay on your back and think of drills and you'll have a kid in no time."

 **He ... overhead.**

"Why is everyone being so careless?" James asked. "They might as well walk up to this guy and call him a muggle at this point."

 **Most ... people.**

"Charming."

 **He ... bakery.**

"Finally, a likeable trait about this guy." Peter said. "He was good taste in sweets."

 **He'd ... passed.**

"They weren't doing anything but standing there! What is this guy's problem?"

 **He ... uneasy.**

"I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say one of them has a complexion he doesn't quite agree with."

 **This ... saying.**

" **The Potters, ... Harry."**

"Your kid's got a reputation already, Prongs." Sirius teased.

"See, on one hand I'm proud he's following in my foothat's right, that's what I heard yes, their sontsteps." James reasoned. "On the other hand, why does every witch and wizard think talking about my son is more important than not keeping our world a secret?"

"Maybe just the fact that he was born is enough to cause a scandal." Peter pondered.

 **Mr. Dursley ... it.**

"He can think? That's surprising."

"What did I do to this guy?"

 **He ... him,**

"Not her fault you're an asshole."

 **seized ... mustache,**

"What is he, a villain?"

 **thinking… name.**

"It's the most unusual name I know."

"Your name is literally Sirius."

"My point still stands."

 **He ... Harry.**

"Sure, there are a lot of Potters with sons called Harry with black hair and born on March 27th. At least four I'm sure."

 **Come ... Harvey.**

"I am not naming my son Harvey."

 **Or Harold.**

"That's even worse."

 **There ... Mrs. Dursley;**

"He thinks of his wife by her last name." Peter was astonished. "In his head, he doesn't even refer to her by her first name."

"Maybe he doesn't know it. Like I said, lay down and think of the Queen."

"You said drills."

"Fuck off."

 **she ... that...**

"Woooooowwwwww."

"This asshole better keep my wife out of his thoughts." James said, sincerely threating someone in a book.

"Who do you think your wife may be, anyway?" Remus asked.

"Not sure, but I know who I hope it is." The boys started whooping and hollering as James turned a faint shade of pink.

"Think Lily likes the name Harry?"

"Better than Harold."

 **but ... cloaks…**

"He's going to have nightmares about people in cloaks."

 **He ... door.**

" **Sorry," He grunted,**

"At least he said sorry."

 **as ... today!**

"Must be his birthday."

 **Rejoice, ... last!**

There was a thickening pause of silence as they processed the information. Sirius was the first to react, and he jumped up and hollered excitedly. "He's fucking dead, the worthless bastard!"

Remus, on the other hand, replied with a more somber "I was hoping he would die sooner."

Sirius stopped and stared. "How much sooner did you want?

"Did he even die?" Peter asked. "He just says he's gone."

"Stop asking anxiety-driven questions!" Sirius pointed.

"But that's every question I ever ask."

"Guys," James broke up the rising tension. He gestured for Sirius to sit back down before continuing. "We should read on before celebrating. We don't have all the information."

Remus nodded and slowly moved to continue, the sound of the crinkling paper seemingly have been enhanced after the pause.

 **Even ... day!"**

Everyone looked to James, expecting him to comment, but he just waved them off.

 **And ... off.**

 **Mr. Dursley ... spot.**

"It's just a hug, mate." Sirius tried to liven the tension, and it worked, a little bit.

 **He ... rattled.**

"Shaken, even. Possibly stirred." Peter said.

"Not stirred, shaken." Remus countered.

 **He ... before,**

"He doesn't like imagining things?"

"Imaging things is for foreigners."

 **because ... imagination.**

"Told you."

 **As ... morning.**

"McGonagall improves every mood, I don't appreciate his lack of appreciation."

 **It ... eyes.**

"Maybe it is McGonagall." Remus said.

Sirius gasped. "Are you saying I'm right about something?"

"Statistically, it has to happen every once in a while." Remus teases. "Plus, since these people are important in some way then it makes sense that she would be there."

"How do you know they're important?"

"We've been reading about them for almost an hour." He said. "They're important."

" **Shoo!" ... look.**

"Definitely McGonagall." Sirius and Remus said at the same time.

 **Was ... wondered.**

"It's normal McGonagall behavior." Peter said.

 **trying ... wife.**

"A solid foundation for a healthy marriage." James said.

 **Mrs. ... Door's**

"Is that her legal name?"

 **problems ... news.**

" **And ... today.**

"Couldn't we have been even just a little bit cautious?" James asked. "Just a little?"

 **Although ... grin.**

"I have a feeling the newscaster knows something."

"Could be a squib." Remus shrugged.

" **Most ... Jim?"**

" **Well, ...stars!"**

"Fucking Merlin hairy tits, might as well as put 'magic is real' in the sky followed by an image of bullocks."

 **Perhaps ... tonight."**

"Use a rubber."

 **Mr. Dursley ...Potters…**

"Since when did we think muggles were so dim that they wouldn't notice all this?"

 **Mrs. Dursley ... tea.**

"An English tradition."

 **It was no good.**

"Must be an American. Tea fixes everything."

 **He'd ... her.**

"He will have to talk to his wife. What horror!"

 **He ... you?"**

 **As ... angry.**

"Who the hell is Petunia? My name's Mary!"

 **After ... sister.**

" **No," ... "Why?"**

"I'm leaving you for her."

" **Funny ... today…"**

"Funny as in," James fake gasped " _Non-white people!"_

"I think he was talking about wizards."

"They're implied."

" **So?" ... Mrs. Dursley.**

" **Well, ... know ….**

"Spit it out man!"

 **her crowd."**

 **Mrs. Dursley ..."Potter."**

"But that would mean having to talk to her more." Peter shuddered.

 **He ... he?"**

" **I ... stiffly.**

"If this is a book about my son, but he's only a baby, then why are we spending so much time with these people?"

"I told you, they're important."

"But why?"

"Shut up, Prongs."

" **What's ... it?"**

" **Harry. ... me."**

"But nobody did. Or ever will."

"Also since she knows my son's name I guess the falling out recently happened?"

"Stop trying to figure out the story and let it happen."

" **Oh, ... horribly.**

"He was planning on changing his name to Harry, now he's sad."

" **Yes, I quite agree."**

 **He ... bed.**

"Normally I would say bring on the sexy times," Sirius said. "but I really, really don't want to listen to these people have a miserable two minutes."

"Not even from Remus' voice?" Peter asked. He often flirts with Remus for Sirius, and none of them could tell if it was with a purpose or if he just wanted to play along, but Sirius never complained about a new angle to tease Remus.

"Welllllllllllllll," He left it hanging, staring right in his hazel eyes.

"Now normally I would love to give you the chance get your rocks off," Remus teased right back, "but I'm pretty sure this isn't that kind of book."

"Damn."

 **While ... there.**

"No, turn away McGonagall, you don't want to see this."

 **It ... something.**

 **Was ... it.**

"Trust me, I'm not so hot to have people know we're related either."

 **The Dursleys ... quickly**

"Like the night they made Dudley.

 **but ... Mrs. Dursley.**

"Again, he thinks of her as a title rather than a name. Perfect marriage."

 **The Potters ... on -**

"That means we're mixed up in what's going on, doesn't it?" Remus had no comforting words for James, he could only shrug and keep reading.

 **he ... them ….**

 **How very wrong he was.**

"Dammit."

 **Mr. Dursley ... Drive.**

"This'll ruin your back, Minnie."

 **It ... all.**

 **A ... ground.**

"Probably apparition." James nodded.

 **The ... narrowed.**

 **Nothing ... belt.**

"Is it light of my life, reason I breathe, sexiest man alive Albus Dumbledore?" Sirius exclaimed.

 **He ... boots.**

"It has to be Dumbledore, no one has as much fashion sense as this Adonis of a man."

"Padfoot, please don't salivate all over these floors."

"I make no promises dear Moony."

 **His ... spectacles**

"He kept them!" Remus yelled happily.

"Kept what?" Sirius asked.

"The glasses!" He showed a toothy grin, which was downright adorable. "I gave them to him as a thank you for letting me come to the school. They were my grandfathers."

"Were the fact that they were 'half-moon' spectacles a pun?"

"What do you think?"

 **And ... Dumbledore.**

"A man after my own heart." Sirius sighed romantically.

 **Albus ... unwelcome.**

"But not his skin."

 **He ... street.**

"Get your own man, Winnie."

 **For ... known."**

 **He ... lighter.**

"A what?"

"Nothing that concerns you; cigarettes are bad and not for children."

 **He ... pop.**

"Cooooooooool."

 **He ... Put-Outer,**

"I'm sure there's a better name for that."

 **until ... him.**

"I don't think a cat's eyes produce light, but okay."

"Winnie can do whatever she wants with her eyes."

 **If ... cat.**

"I'm sure that would be bad for your knees."

 **He ... it.**

" **Fancy ... McGonagall."**

"Ha! Right again!"

"Sorry to have doubted you, Padfoot."

"Oh, I could never stay mad at you, Moony." He blew a kiss across the way. Remus caught it in his palm.

 **He ... eyes.**

"I always thought that was weird." Peter said. "The fact that your clothes and things change with you, but they show up in your fur."

"I'm happy for it." James said. "I wouldn't be able to function if my glasses didn't come with me."

 **She, ... one.**

James looked fantastically smug at that, and Sirius could not hold back from a "Oh bugger off."

 **Her ... ruffled.**

" **How ... asked.**

"How could he not?"

" **My ... stiffly."**

" **You'd ... McGonagall.**

"That's bad for your joints, you should really stretch more."

"You know, like an actual cat would."

" **All day? ... here."**

"Party like the world's biggest bastard went out like the world's biggest bastard."

 **Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

"In a most Minnie way,"

" **Oh ... news."**

"That's what I've been saying!"

"Sometimes, Prongs, you're a bigger wet blanket than Wormtail here."

"Hey!"

"No offense."

"None taken." He lied, feeling sincerely very insulted. He feels that a lot around Sirius, and it's slowly starting to wear him down.

 **She ... sense.**

"Hey, I know him." Sirius said. "He's a dick."

" **You ... years."**

"Eleven years." Remus murmured to himself, mournfully.

" **I ... rumors."**

"Having a gay old time."

 **She ... all.**

"That's a thing called irony."

 **I ... Dumbledore?"**

" **It ... Dumbledore.**

"Thank fuck."

" **We ... drop?"**

"Please and thank you." Peter said.

" **No, ... coldly,**

"I'll take hers."

 **as ... gone - "**

" **My ... name:**

Remus hesitated, for longer than he intended too, while the group was waiting for the shoe to drop.

 **Voldemort."**

They all shuddered. At least they know it doesn't get easier in the future.

 **Professor McGonagall ... 'You-Know-Who'.**

"Which is why I've been trying to get 'Bastard' to be recognized, with no luck."

 **I ...saying**

Remus hesitated again, but kept going.

 **Voldemort's name.**

" **I ... admiring.**

"Not only is he the best-looking man to have ever, he's the most impressive."

" **But ..., Voldemort,**

He almost didn't hesitate this time.

 **was frightened of."**

" **You ... have."**

" **Only ... them."**

"Truer words have never been spoken."

" **It's ... earmuffs."**

 **Professor McGonagall ... him?"**

 **It ... discuss,**

The group was also finally reaching the point they wanted to know about, and the feeling of four friends ripping apart a book was slowly morphing into something slightly more serious.

 **the ... true.**

"Going directly to the source. Smart."

 **Dumbledore, ... answer.**

" **What ... Hollow.**

"Where I live." James said quietly, turning very pale, heart beating in his throat.

 **He .. Potters.**

Remus' voice was losing some of the steadiness it always has, and his fingers were starting to twitch.

 **The ... Potter**

"Lily," James said even quieter. This was no time to celebrate.

 **are ... dead."**

It was as if a shoe was let go, but hasn't hit the ground yet.

 **Dumbledore ... gasped.**

The shoe landed with a dull thud.

James, and sat back down, then stood again. He started pacing back in forth. No one said anything for a long time, then he did it. He screamed.

"FUCK!" He held the one syllable word for a long time, slowly sinking to the floor. Peter started to cry again, with shaking, heaving breathes. Remus took the opposite approach, becoming so silent that you couldn't hear if he was breathing, but who's hands (still holding the book in reading position) started shaking so badly they were almost vibrating.

Sirius took the longest to do anything, but what he did, was laugh. He always laughs when he can't understand or deal with the situation on hand.

He always fucking laughs. Then it turns into tears. Then it turns into him violently taking it out on whatever nearest thing he can reach. Let's just say, none of the pillows survive.

Eventually, they all notice that four full vials of bright blue liquid appeared in the center of the room out of the corner of their eyes.

Sirius almost wanted to smash the vials too, but he held back, and he was the one who gave everyone their dosage of calming drought.

"None of this can be real." Sirius' voice cracked as he voiced his denial.

"You know it is." James said solemnly.

Remus stared at the book but didn't read any of the words.

"Moony." He looked up to James. "Keep reading."

" **Lily and James…, Albus…"**

"At least Minnie is sad that I'm gone." He said with a dark smirk.

"A lot of people will be." Peter was always sincerer with his emotions than the others.

"Thank you, Wormtail. I appreciate that." He turned and gave a weaker, but real grin.

 **Dumbledore ... heavily.**

 **Professor McGonagall's ... Harry.**

"Tried?"

 **But - ... gone.**

 **Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

"I… don't understand?" Peter started. He looked to Remus first.

"None of us do right now, mate. No worries."

" **It's - ... survive?"**

"He survived, though." James said. "He lived."

They all understood the title in that moment.

" **We ... know."**

 **Professor McGonagall ... pockets**

"I wonder if he has that watch yet." Peter wondered.

 **and ... way?"**

"Hagrid will come though. He's reliable."

" **Yes," ... places?"**

" **I've ... now."**

"No!" Sirius yelled. "Not these - these people!" He was thinking that Dumbledore may have gone even loonier than he was now to think that Harry should be left with these people.

James, who gave Dumbledore slightly more credit, said "They can't be his first choice. I wouldn't want pass any of you over these guys, but I know he knows that."

" **You ... here!"**

"Listen to her, Dumbledore." Peter finally started speaking again.

" **It's ... letter."**

"Oh yes, a fucking letter will explain everything. That's all they need, a single letter."

" **A letter?" ... letter?**

"it better be a big letter."

 **These ...Harry -**

No one wanted to mention the elephant in the room on that one.

 **every ... name!"**

" **Exactly," ... it?"**

"I agree." James said.

"You can't sit there and think this family is the one he should grow into?" Sirius argued.

James sighed. "No, I wish there was any other family that he could go into, but that's a lot for one boy to grow into. And I trust Dumbledore's judgement. If he says this is the way, then this is the way."

"Dumbledore never did lead me astray before." Remus added in. "I wouldn't make this choice if I was in charge, but it can't be worse than the alternative. It can't be."

Peter, who sat there thinking that this is the worst idea of the bunch and something he desperately, desperately, does not want this choice to be made for his best friend's child, never disagreed in an argument. There's always a nagging voice in the back of his head that stops him from disagreeing with them, in case they suddenly feel a trio is better and he's left alone, again, powerless.

He never wants to feel powerless again. "I trust him, too." Which was not technically a lie.

 **Professor McGonagall ... it.**

" **Hagrid's bringing him."**

" **You ... this?"**

"There's very few people I trust with the life of my son more than Hagrid."

" **I ... Dumbledore.**

" **I'm ... careless.**

"He's not going to be careless in a situation like this." James said certainly.

 **He ... that?"**

 **A ... them.**

"Is that mine?" Sirius asked, finally getting some of his pep back.

"I think it might be yours." His happiness was contagious and Remus smiled warmly.

 **If ... dolphins.**

"HAGRID!" They all cheered.

 **In ... blankets.**

"Harry!" They all cheered, not as loud.

" **Hagrid," ...motorcycle?"**

" **Borrowed it, ... me.**

"Hell yeah!" Sirius cheered.

 **I've got him, sir."**

" **No...there?"**

" **No, ...destroyed,**

A pang of hurt washed through James as he remembered how old that house really is, but then remembered that he dies in it, so his perspective is put in check.

 **but ...Bristol."**

 **Dumbledore ... hair**

"Ooo, he got the Potter hair." James winched. "Sorry, kid."

 **over ... lightning.**

" **Is ... Professor McGonagall.**

" **Yes," ... forever."**

"The ladies love scars."

"What do you know about what ladies love?"

"I know a lot about what ladies like." He winked.

 **"Couldn't ... Dumbledore?"**

 **"Even ... Underground.**

"Useful."

 **Well - ... with."**

"I would like to think that the process of giving my son a new family isn't something you get over with, but okay."

 **Dumbledore ... house.**

 **"Could I ... Hagrid.**

"Oh, Hagrid."

 **He ... dog.**

"Merlin, I'm going to start crying again." Peter joked, but not really.

" **Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall,**

"Ha."

" **you'll wake the Muggles!"**

"Let the man cry, Minnie. I just died, to hell with the Muggles."

" **S-s-sorry," ... Muggles - "**

"I'm going to have to give Hagrid a hug sometime soon." James said.

" **Yes, ... Hagrid,**

"Kinda cold there, McGonagall."

 **or ... two.**

"Wait, you're not even going to knock on the door?" James asked. "You're just going to leave him there all night?"

"And it's still only midnight. Does Dumbledore know anything about kids younger than 11?"

 **For ... out.**

" **Well," ... celebrations."**

"I feel like this sort of thing would dampen anybody's mood for parties. Even Padfoot's."

"Partying, yes. Drinking? Hell no."

" **Yeah," ... back.**

"If he could also give me my godson, then that would be great too."

"How do you know you're the godfather?" Remus asked. Sirius gestured to have James answer.

"I already promised Sirius my first son." James said. "You have either my first daughter or my second son. Peter either gets the second daughter, third son, or first horse."

"I'll get to be the godfather of a horse? I love it."

 **G'night, ... sir."**

 **Wiping ...night.**

"She was worried about Hagrid waking the Muggles but not my motorcycle?"

" **I ... reply.**

 **Dumbledore ... Put-Outer.**

"Still hate that name."

 **He ... four.**

"There's still time to go over and knock on the door, you know, no pressure."

" **Good luck ,... gone.**

 **A ... Dudley…**

"Oh Merlin, that brat."

 **He ... lived!"**

Remus was silent as he finished the chapter, and besides Sirius saying a sarcastic "Poetic." referring to the last sentence, they just looked at each other for a moment.

"It's getting late." James finally said, and he was right. If they had a window outside they could see that the sun was starting to set and curfew was about to be set in.

"Oh come on," Sirius said. "You can't tell me you don't want to read as much as we can right now."

"I feel like we can't keep this to just ourselves." Was all he said, and he got up and left the Room of Requirement.

They followed behind him, shortly.

(Author Notes: in my fic, they take NEWTS in the 6th year as well as the 7th, everyone's at least a lil gay, I change canon trivia at will, and this is pretty much MST3K fanfiction with a Marauders skin. Sirius is Tom Servo, obviously. Also no harm meant to all Harvey's and Harold's.)

(original format posted elsewhere where it allows it. PM me for link if you want it.)


	2. Chapter 2

They made it all the way till they were in front of the Fat Lady before Sirius grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hold on mate, slow down." He turned James around and finally asked what they were all thinking. "What the fuck are you planning to do?"

"Language, Black." The Fat Lady scolded.

"I'm sorry my beautifully large madam." Sirius says without loosening his grip or turn away from looking directly into James' eyes.

"Lily needs to know about this." He said.

"What, no!" Sirius exclaimed. "It was given to us, we can't share this with anybody."

"But she's involved with this." James had to be vague with his wording because it was impossible for the Fat Lady to not be listening, and he knows if she gets wind of this then everyone will know about this.

"James is right." Remus caught up with them. "But Lily has to be the only one."

It took Sirius a good minute of considering before letting up and said "Fine. Bring her. But if she's going to complain about my commentary I'm going to take the book for myself."

Peter arrived after that, panting slightly, and asked "What's the deal, Prongs?"

James and Sirius walked ahead into the common room and Remus explained what they were doing to him. James scanned the room for Lily but she was nowhere to be seen, but he did spot the next best thing: Bertha Jorkins.

Not the smartest girl around - she doesn't even bother thinking through the most basic of plans and won't notice when it goes bad until the day after it sinks and burns - but she's reliable enough and a good conversationalist, so she's not too bad. She also bunks with Lily, so that's useful.

"Hello, Bertha." James said.

"Hullo," She said, without lifting her head from the seat of the armchair.

"Thinking about the N.E.W.T.s?"

"No, that was a few hours ago." Her voice was muffled as the rest of her body on the ground moved with her words. Peter feels a pang of empathy with her test-anxiety and also a pang of worry that this position will ruin her back. "I'm trying to think of a job for me in the future."

"You could always work for the ministry." Sirius said.

She finally lifted her head to stare at them quizzingly, parts of her face red and enflamed from the pressure of being pushed into the seat of a chair for so long. "What do you guys want, anyway?"

"We need you to give this to Lily," Remus handed her the novel. "Tell her to read the first chapter, and that everything in it is true."

She begrudgingly got up and snatched the book out of his hands and handed up to the girl's dormitory as if they just asked her to not only transcript but understand everything Professor Binns tries to teach them in History of Magic.

The great thing about it being Bertha Jorkins is that she is not the least bit curious about what she was just asked to do, so she has no idea how important the book she is passing off really is.

They listen to her steps get fainter and fainter until it fades into silence, and they keep listening. They wait almost a minute before the footsteps start again and Bertha returns. "She said she'll read it when she can. I wouldn't wait on her, if I were you." And she returned to her previous position, burying her head in shame.

The Marauders looked at each other and silently agreed that it will have to wait until morning. They all walked to their dorms with a lot on their mind.

"Psst, James. James, wake up."

A mysterious voice woke James up from an uneasy sleep, and when he was met with bright green eyes and red hair an inch from his face he shot up. "Evans!"

The rest of the dormitory was stirred awake as Lily looked exasperated.

"Why are you in here?" James was rudely reminded that he was without a shirt and wearing pajama bottoms. There were sleepy echoes of "Evans?" "What's happening?" and "Why the fuck am I awake?"

"I read the book." She stood up straight and looked imposing. "What's your plan with all this, huh?"

"My plan?" He blinked confusingly. In the back, Remus asked "What time is it?"

"It's past midnight." She didn't look away from James' face and he could tell that she was sincerely getting pissed at his lack of a real answer. "What kind of prank are you trying to pull off? Writing a whole book about "our" son?" She used air quotes to emphasize the unbelievability of it.

"Shhhhh!" He gestured wildly to get her to stop talking, just on the off chance that their first dorm-mate, Kingsley, is awake and listening. Lily was surprised that he reacted that way, fully expecting him to try and play it off or own up to it.

"Look," James pitched his voice lower to be less disrupting. "I can't explain everything right now, but we, the four of us, have a place. We can show you, if you want to read on."

She stood there, waiting to see if he will say anything more. "So you're telling me…. this isn't some prank of yours?"

"It's really not. Did you read the note?"

"Yeah," She said tentatively. "It was a bit much, honestly. The fact that it mentioned me made me think that you guys wrote it."

"It mentioned you?"

"Yeah," She dug into her pockets - they make pajama bottoms with pockets? - and handed him a ripped piece of parchment and he read it to himself.

 **Lily Evans, if this note makes it into your possession, then you were invited into the reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It's very important that you join the group. It will be explained later. KNH**

"This is just getting more and more suspicious." Was all that James had to say about the note.

"So are we leaving?" Peter asked, dragging a hand across his face.

"For the love of Merlin, please." Kingsley said.

They made it back to the Room of Requirement sleep deprived and under the invisibility cloak.

If Lily was still thinking that any of this wasn't true, this would convince her. "Is this….?"

"Yep." Sirius deadpanned. "Why couldn't this wait until the morning, again?"

"You can't tell me you don't want to read as much as we can." James said in a mocking voice.

"Fuck you and everything you stand for."

When they walked in they noticed than an extra armchair has been added, a jet black one, and Lily immediately called it. "It's my favorite color." She shrugged.

They were all formed into a circle now to accommodate the new chair and in the empty space in the center there was a small end table with a steaming tea-pot, towel, and five teacups.

"Oh thank Merlin." Sirius said, rushing over to make himself a cup. He held the cup in his hands as if it were a receiving from a prayer, and he downed as much as he could in one gulp.

They all took a minute to gather their tea and get comfortable, silently thankful that for the next three days that school is still in session classes have been cancelled.

"Let's get started." Remus said.

 **Chapter Two**

 **The Vanishing Glass**

 **Nearly ten years had passed**

"Because nothing interesting would happen in ten years, just skip it."

 **since the Dursley's had woken up to find their nephew on the front step,**

"I still can't believe that Dumbledore just dumped Harry on the porch in the middle of the night." Lily said. "Just like 'Hey, fuck off kid.' and tossed him down like the morning newspaper."

"That would make for a much messier experience in the morning."

 **but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.**

"The foreigners have been evaded until another day."

 **The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room,**

"The sunlight is being described in such a creepy way." Peter said.

"The sunlight is the foreigner."

 **which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen the faithful news report about the owls.**

"Because that was the most important event that happened that night."

 **Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different colored bonnets -**

"Oh hey, a happy ending." Sirius said. "They replaced the brat with a beach ball."

"Do you even know what a beach ball is." Remus asked.

"Absolutely not."

"You don't know what a beach ball is?" Lily asked.

"Just get all your surprise out of the way." James said. "Padfoot doesn't know anything about the muggle world."

"Do _you_ know what a beach ball is?"

"Uhh," was all he could reply with. Remus, having a rare moment of mercy, read on to stop the embarrassment.

 **but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blonde boy**

"How did they take pictures of me?" Peter asked.

 **riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game**

"A what?"

Sirius and James looked to Remus for an answer, Remus looked to Peter for an answer, Peter looked to Lily for an answer, and all she could come up with "I'm not really sure. It could be something like my Dos back home, but a computer is probably a future thing and not a Muggle thing."

"You have a Dos?" Peter excitedly asked. "I keep asking my mom to get one, but she hasn't relented."

"Nice, nice." Sirius interrupted. "I am not any less confused, but continue on having a conversation with made up words."

 **with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.**

"Who wasn't invited to the playing of this 'computer game'."

 **The room help no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

"Oh, this is not a good sign." James said. It was rather easy to get attached to Harry, even after never meeting him, so both James and Lily started feeling a bundle of anxiety build up as they worried about the wellbeing of their child.

The other three felt the protectiveness too, but to a slightly less degree, but no less likely to cause an upheaval if anything were to come to this child.

 **Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shill voice that made the first noise of the day.**

" **Up! Get up! Now!"**

"I've been meaning to ask, Evans." Sirius started. "Was your sister always such a heinous bitch?"

"I would appreciate toning down on the attitude there, Black." She responded.

"Oh, should I also monitor my language so I'm all prime and prude and proper?"

"Say whatever the fuck you want." She said. "But I'm the only one allowed to call my sister a heinous bitch. Which yes, she's always been this way, but never this bad of one."

Sirius looked at her for a second, before nodding, seemingly impressed with the answer. "You're not so bad, Evans."

"Are you going to call me by my first name anytime soon?"

"We haven't reached that point yet."

 **Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.**

" **Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it.**

"He remembers my motorcycle!"

"Funny, I would have thought that a nightmare."

 **He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before:**

"Deja'vu."

 **His aunt was back outside the door.**

" **Are you up yet?" she demanded.**

"Give him a minute, Merlin's sake."

" **Nearly," said Harry.**

" **Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon.**

"Why can't you? Did you forget how?" Peter joked.

 **And don't you dare let it burn,**

"If you care so much about the damn bacon, then cook the damn bacon your damn self."

"Goddamn!"

 **I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday.**

"Duddy sounds like a candy you would get a movie theater." Lily said.

"Please stop confusing me I only just woke up." Sirius begged.

"I feel like you're starting to make things up just to leave us out of things." James added.

 **Harry groaned.**

" **What did you say?" His aunt snapped through the door.**

"He said piss off."

" **Nothing, nothing…"**

 **Dudley's birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his head and after pulling a spider off one of them,**

"Why would he have spiders on his socks?" James asked.

 **put them on. Harry was used to spiders,**

"Spiders should never be something that you're used to."

 **because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them,**

"As cupboards are known to be, which is why a normal person doesn't spend enough time in one to become used to spiders."

 **and that was where he slept.**

" _Excuse me what."_

"He sleeps in the fucking cupboard?! With the _spiders_?!" Lily exclaimed.

"I'm going to murder these people." James sounded a bit too happy about committing a crime.

 **When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen.**

"It's not just going to brush off the fact that he sleeps in a _cupboard_ as if that's not important." Remus said.

 **The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents.**

"It is just going to skip over the fact that he sleeps in the _cupboard. Under the stairs._ "

 **It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention a second television**

"A SECOND one, while my son gets spiders."

 **and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise -**

"I'm seriously starting to suspect Dudley may be my evil twin." Peter said.

 **unless of course it involved punching somebody.**

"Definitely an evil twin."

 **Dudley's favorite punching bad was Harry,**

"And my favorite target is Dudley."

"He's still technically a child, Prongs." Remus warned. "Go for the parents."

Lily, who still loved her sister even though they haven't made up yet (and never will, it looks like), did not approve of her used as a target for violence. On the other hand, her future son sleeps with spiders in a closet, so she said "Tuney's mine. You go for the husband."

She ignored Sirius mockingly mouthing "Tuney?" to himself.

 **but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

"That's my boy."

 **Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard,**

"The secret to becoming athletic and speedy."

 **but Harry has always been small and skinny for his age.**

James, who is 5'5 and is the only one in the same weight class as Remus in the room, says "My bad."

 **He looked even smaller and skinner than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was.**

Remus, who was currently wearing robes from the second-hand clothes store with roughly patched holes all over, somehow blamed himself for this. "My bad."

 **Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees,**

"Oh Merlin, he got my knees."

 **black hair, and bright green eyes.**

Lily smiled proudly at that, but when the entire group rounded their heads towards her, she blushed.

James wanted to say something smooth, something suave, something impressive. Instead of all that, he said "He looks just like me, except for the eyes."

"Pray for this kid." Lily said.

 **He wore round glasses help together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

That line sat well with approximately no one in the room.

 **The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

"The only thing he likes about himself is a scar." Peter said mournfully.

 **He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.**

 **"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said.**

"In a car crash." James was just baffled.

"They didn't tell him how we really died?"

"These people are just unbelievable."

 **"And don't ask questions."**

"Questions on how the world works, why things happen, or how your parents died are not allowed in this house."

 **Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

"I feel like Dudley isn't going to be growing up in a very stimulating environment." Remus said.

 **Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

" **Comb your hair!" he barked,**

"Read a book!"

 **by way of a morning greeting.**

 **About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut.**

"Doesn't work. I've tried.

"What about your dad's hair potion? Sleekeazy's Hair Potion?" Lily asked.

"It works just fine for his hair." He said ruefully.

"Awww, you remembered the hair potion his dad made." Sirius teased. He started making kissing noises before Lily hit him repeatedly with her pillow, making extra sure to mess up his hair as much as she could.

"No! Don't look at me! I'm hideous!"

"You look the same to me." Remus said. Sirius let out a deathly gasp at the sudden but inevitable betrayal.

 **Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way -**

"All over the place." James said.

 **all over the place.**

"Told you."

 **Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blonde hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head.**

"How is he the bully and not the one being bullied?"

 **Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel -**

"Which is why I am now an atheist."

 **Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

"Ha!"

"I'm so glad he got my sense of humor." James smiled.

"I am not." Lily said.

 **Harry put the plates of eggs and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room.**

"What, since both Vernon and Dudley were at the table?"

 **Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

" **Thirty-six,"**

"Is that bad?" Peter asked. "Thirty-six presents sound amazing."

 **he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"Oh God." Lily said.

"TWO LESS. He's about to throw a temper tantrum over having TWO LESS presents than the year before." Remus exclaimed. "I don't think I ever got more than ten presents, ever, in my life."

"You could buy this kid a house and he will cry if it doesn't have seven bathrooms."

" **Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."**

" **All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face."**

"HE GOT THIRTY-SEVEN PRESENTS AND HE'S STILL MAD."

 **Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

"I hope he does just that, and breaks every present on the table." Peter said. "It's a good life lesson for the kid."

"You know they would just replace every present he broke like it wasn't his own damn fault."

"You're right."

 **Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy another two presents while we're out today.**

"He didn't even break any presents and he's getting more. This is ridiculous."

 **How's that, popkin?**

"What the fuck is a popkin? Whatever happened to the good, Queen's given pumpkins?"

 **Two more presents. Is that all right?"**

"Is she asking permission to buy him more presents?"

"Who gave this kid this much power?"

 **Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.**

"He wouldn't know hard work if it bought him thirty-seven presents."

 **Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"**

"Dear God someone help this kid."

" **Thirty-nine, sweetgums," said Aunt Petunia.**

"If you told him that thirty-seven was more than thirty-eight he would be just as satisfied."

" **Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

 **Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father.**

"He's turning this into a good thing?!"

' **Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

 **At that moment the telephone rang**

"How convenient."

 **and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.**

"Do you know what any of this is?" Remus asked Sirius.

"I can guess what a racing bike is." Sirius said. "A bike that you can race with."

"You're not wrong."

"I can't believe he got his own VCR." Lily said.

"Stop saying those letters at me."

 **He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch**

"A GOLD WRISTWATCH. WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO WITH A GOLD WRISTWATCH?"

"Calm down there, Moony."

"Don't tell me what to do unless you're buying me a gold wristwatch."

 **when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

"Wongry."

" **Bad news, Vernon," she said.**

"I'm a lesbian now and also I'm taking the children into a loving home."

" **Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

"He's not a fucking dog, lady."

"Of course he's not, she's nice to dogs." She said bitterly.

 **Dudley's mother fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants,**

"A whole restaurant that serves only hamburgers. Amazing."

"I think that's every restaurant in America."

 **or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage**

"I prefer to call it 'Eau de Seniority'."

 **and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

"She needs to get laid."

"I feel like that would just break a hip bone."

"She needs to get laid, but gently."

" **Now what?" said Aunt Petunia,**

"You could just, I don't know, stop treating him like a burden and take him with you."

 **looking furiously at Harry as though he planned this.**

"Yes, he broke an old ladies leg. You figured it out."

 **Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

"Those are, unironically, the best cat names I have ever heard in my life." Peter said.

"I want to tattoo all of those words on my body." Lily said.

" **We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

" **Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."**

 **The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there -**

"That could be useful if he was spying on them."

"Why would he ever need to spy on them? They're the most morally bankrupt boring people ever."

 **or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

"For _them_ to consider something nasty is pretty harsh."

" **What about what's-her-name, your friend -**

"The one much more attractive than you."

 **Yvonne?"**

" **On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

"Where the hell is Majorca?"

"It's in Spain."

"Oh Moony, you're so smart. I knew that sexy head of yours is smarter than I previously called it." Sirius gushed.

" **You could just leave me here," Harry put hopefully**

"He's much too young to be left alone." Lily said.

"I was left alone at that age." James said.

"How did that turn out?"

He thought back to himself at that age. "He's much too young to be left alone." He eventually said.

 **(he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

"Anything bad happens to that thing they would blame it on him."

 **Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

"Not a good look, I'm afraid."

" **And come back to find the house in ruins?" She snarled.**

"It's what you deserve, you can't really argue with that."

" **I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**

"He should absolutely blow up the house."

" **I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "…. and leave him in the car….."**

"All day?! That could kill him!"

" **That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone…."**

"But nooooo, he's worried about the car."

 **Dudley began to cry loudly.**

"Cry baby."

 **In fact, he wasn't really crying -**

"He can't even own up to the fact that he's a cry baby."

 **it had been years since he'd really cried -**

"Once a cry baby, always a cry baby."

"It's like a club."

 **but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"What she should be giving him every time he cried is a pat on the back and time to calm down."

"This is everything that's wrong with the country."

" **Dinky Duddydums,**

At the utterance of that word, everyone in the room burst out laughing.

"D-Dinky Duddydums!" Sirius laughed out, tears coming out of his face.

"Oh my god." Lily said in between breaths. "How can she say that with a straight face?!"

"DINKY DUDDYDUMS!" Peter yelled, because that was the only thing he could process in that moment.

It was a good minute before everyone calmed down, but it was possibly the best laugh they had had in a while. Someone saying the phrase 'Dinky Duddydums' sincerely is scientifically proven to bring a group of people closer together.

 **don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!"**

James, wiping away tears, said "I almost feel sorry for this brat. It's not his fault he's about as complex as a pile of dung."

"Can't put the sins of the father on the son, but he's still a brat."

"100% a brat."

 **she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

"She's going to poke an eye out."

" **I… don't… want… him… t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp- spoils everything!"**

"By existing?"

 **He shot Harry a nasty grin through a the gap in his mother's arms.**

"Dear Merlin, do I hate this kid."

 **Just then, the doorbell rang -**

"How convenient. Again."

" **Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss,**

"I do not believe that that is his real name. I just can't."

 **walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat.**

"Not that there's anything wrong with that, obviously."

 **He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them.**

"Now there's something to find fault with. He's just as much as a bratty bully as this kid."

"They're all assholes."

"Thank you for your input, Padfoot."

"No need to thank me, dear Wormtail."

 **Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"Of course he does, he's not in it for the long haul."

 **Half and hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life.**

"At least he's going to the zoo." Lily reasoned. "Every kid should have a trip to the zoo."

 **His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but they they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

"Here we go."

" **I'm warning you," he had said,**

"Don't let anything bad happen anywhere on the planet or I'll blame you for it."

 **putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's,**

"If you're going to be that close to his face can you at least take a breath mint?"

" **I'm warning you now, boy - any funny business, anything at all -**

"If a single piece of dust blows up my nose and makes me sneeze, ooh boy are you getting it."

 **and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

"It sure as fuck better be Christmas eve if you're giving that threat." Lily said.

" **I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honeslty.."**

 **But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.**

"We do," Peter said. "It doesn't help much, but we do."

 **The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry**

"His magic has been showing." James said. "I'm sure that didn't end well."

 **and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

 **Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs,**

"What the fuck that's horrible."

 **which she left "to hide that horrible scar."**

"That's even worse considering that's the only thing he likes about himself."

"It's quite possible he likes the scar because they hate it. He could get that from your rebellious genes."

"If that was the case than he would have a bigger ego than Padfoot." James teased.

"That is, frankly, impossible and I don't like the insinuation that someone does something better than me."

"So you don't like reality checks, got it."

 **Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry,**

"If he wants to see something funny, he should just look in the mirror."

 **who spend a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses.**

"Wouldn't someone notice that he is in a noticeably worse shape than Dudley even though they live together?"

"An adult noticing something is wrong with a child? What planet do you live on?"

 **Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.**

"Stick it to the man, Harry."

 **He had been given a week in his cupboard for this,**

"He was punished for growing his hair?!"

 **even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

 **Another time,**

"Yes, please tell us about another time where you were unfairly punished by the worst Muggles on planet Earth."

 **Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls) -**

"I don't know, I think I can pull that off."

"The number of things that you actually pull off is in the single digits." Remus said.

"You could pull anything off me, any time." Sirius leered.

"Anywhere but here, please." Lily begged. James moved in agreement by pretending to vomit. Peter plugged his ears and closed his eyes in a desperate to maintain his innocence.

"Bite me." Remus said.

 **The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry.**

"I wonder how she explains this one."

 **Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash**

"Makes perfect sense, I see nothing wrong in that assessment."

 **and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

"Imagine being relieved that you weren't punished for something that wasn't your fault."

"I already know the feeling." Sirius said darkly.

 **On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens.**

"Oh, I have got to hear what this is all about."

 **Dudley's gang**

"I refuse to believe he has his own gang. It's probably all the kids in his class ate paste and decided to form a 'gang' around that."

 **had been chasing him as usual when, much to Harry's surprise as anyone's else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.**

"Did he just…. apparate?"

"I…. don't know. I don't thank accidental magic can be that strong." Remus furrowed his eyebrows.

"Can it be anything else?"

"If there's a spell that puts you on top of chimneys, I haven't learned it yet."

 **The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings.**

"But he was running away from bullies, wouldn't they put a stop to - you know what, never mind. I already know they wouldn't."

 **But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him mid-jump.**

"Wind doesn't work that way, but alright."

"Harry," James started. "That excuse wouldn't work even if you were trying to convince a parakeet you did nothing wrong."

"Please explain to me, Prongs." Sirius started. "In what instance would you need to explain to a parakeet you didn't accidentally apparate on top of some chimneys? I'm incredibly curious."

"Not sure, I have never been in a situation that called for that."

"Touché."

 **But today, nothing was going to go wrong.**

"I think something is going to go wrong today."

 **It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figgs cabbage-smelling living room.**

 **While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things:**

"He needs to find a more productive hobby. He could take up cross-stitching, or macramé."

"Or a sport. Any sport."

 **people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects.**

"I'm sensing a pattern here."

 **This morning, it was motorcycles.**

"The fact that he doesn't like motorcycles makes them even cooler."

"… **roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

"Um, I don't think motorcycles are capable of that sort of thing."

"Only in your dreams, Padfoot."

"Hey, I dream about the men _on_ the motorcycles, not the machines themselves."

"How do you know what a motorcycle is but not other basic Muggles stuff?" Lily asked.

Sirius shrugged. "I found a magazine with pictures of a bunch of motorcycle men, and I wanted one ever since."

" **I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

"Ooh, bad idea Harry."

 **Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache:**

"I hear beets are good for your health. Not this one, but other ones."

" **MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"**

"WHY ARE WE YELLING?"

 **Dudley and Piers sniggered.**

" **I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."**

"Only foreigners dream. Are you a foreigner, son?"

"He's my kid, so by their standards, I think he would be considered one." James said.

 **But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursley's hated even more than his asking questions,**

"It was literally anything else in the world."

 **it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

"They thought the same of refined sugar, pictures with colors on it, homosexuals, and thinking for yourself."

 **It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away,**

"Assholes."

 **they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop.**

"The orange ones are better."

"Most flavors are better than lemon."

 **It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley except that it wasn't blonde.**

"If Harry continues to develop his sense of humor, then I may be out of a job here."

 **Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time.**

"Aww, I'm happy he's happy." Lily smiled. James smiled too, looking at her, and the other three all glanced at each other and rolled their eyes.

 **He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime,**

"How can you get bored with animals? Animals are awesome." Peter said.

 **wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him.**

"They should also find a much more productive hobby. Marconi art, creative writing maybe."

"Or again, any sport. In existence."

 **They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top,**

"Does he have anything sincerely bad enough to complain about? Has he ever even _seen_ a poor person?"

"If they did, Vernon would complain about it to his wife."  
"True."

 **Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

"At least they didn't throw it away."

 **Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

"Fuck."

 **After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons.**

"I could go for a thick, man-crushing python." Sirius said.

Everyone refused to see the double entendre.

 **Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can -**

"But it could only wrap itself once about Uncle Vernon."

 **but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**

"They wouldn't easily be able to tell, as snakes don't have eyelids."

"Thank you, useless-facts-Moony."

"Much appreciated."

 **Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

" **Make it move," he whined to his father.**

"I have no idea on how he thinks he's going to be able to do that. He can't just pay it to move with his endless supply of money."

 **Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass but the snake didn't budge.**

" **Do it again," Dudley ordered.**

"You know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

 **Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly**

"I'm surprised he can do anything smartly."

 **with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

" **This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

 **Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake.**

"The sleeping snake. He can't be that bored."

 **He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.**

"Well, as long as he has a stimulating enough environment he should be fine."

"Stop trying to educate us. Me am know enough about the world."

"I seriously hate you sometimes, Padfoot."

 **It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom,**

"I don't know about that, Harry."

 **where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

"You still sleep in a room filled with spiders, Harry."

 **The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on level with Harry's.**

 **It winked.**

"I thought you said snakes had no eyelids."

"Don't attempt to feed me back my words ever again."

 **Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

"This is kinda cute." Lily said. "He has a snake friend."

 **The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:**

" **I get that all the time."**

" **I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

 **The snake nodded vigorously.**

" _What the fuck."_

"Is he talking to the snake? And it understands him?"

"Is he a fucking parseltongue?"

James tried to keep the peace. "We don't know all the facts guys, let's just read on and maybe it will explained."

" **Where did you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

"Also, where did my ability to talk to snakes come from? While we're asking questions."

"Padfoot." James warned. Sirius put his hands up in defense.

 **The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.**

 **Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**

"How did the snake know the sign was there? Can it read?"

"I guess that proves that snakes are smarter than cats."

" **Was it nice there?"**

 **The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo.**

"He probably should have finished reading that before he continued having the conversation."

" **Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"**

 **As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.**

" **DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY!**

"Oh shit."

 **COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!**

 **Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

"Of course he fucking waddles."

" **Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs.**

"That was just unnecessary."

 **Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -**

"Every good story starts this way."

 **one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

 **Harry sat up and gasped; the glass in front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

"Oh crap."

 **The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

 **As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amigo."**

"A polite snake." Lily said.

 **The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

"As would most Muggles be, I expect."

" **But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

 **The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea**

"Which fixes everything." Sirius said, still holding his empty mug. The pot had been emptied already, but as soon as he looked away the pot had been refilled with more fresh tea. He got up and got a refill now that it was on his mind.

 **while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it tried to squeeze him to death.**

"What, all at the same time?"

"It's a very talented snake."

 **But worst of all,**

"Because it always has to get worse."

 **for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

"Welp, that's an opened can of worms."

 **Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals,"**

"No meals? What the fuck?"

"Sounds like William Shatner." Lily said. Apparently, it was an obscure enough reference that even Remus and Peter didn't catch it. "Star Trek? Look, I was just trying to distract myself from this cruel and unusual punishment. I don't feel much up to explaining what may be the best TV show ever created."

 **before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

 **Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

"Do they take away his meals often? If so then not only am I murdering them but I am doing it very slowly."

 **He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember,**

"Oh, Harry." Lily whispered sadly.

 **ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died.**

"I have never and probably will never get into a car, so the odds of you being in one are slim." James said.

"Don't be so sure about that." Lily said. "My parents bought me a used Volkswagen LT and I love driving that van around. I'll probably find every excuse to drive us around in that thing."

Lily, who hasn't yet even acknowledged the fact that she marries James in the future, seems to be pretty content with that thought. Possibly warming up to him after all?

"So you want to drive the two of us around?" James asked.

She seemed to come to the realization of what she just implied and took the pillow back from Sirius that she previously beat with him and threw it at James, all while keeping a steely look on her face to avoid letting them know what she's really feeling. "Keep reading, Remus."

 **Sometimes, when he strained his memory during hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light**

The room got silent and tense at the mention of that. They all understood what they meant.

 **and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed was the crash.**

"I'm going to have to say that you're wrong, Harry." Sirius tried to joke.

"Well, half wrong." Peter continued. It wasn't a crash, but it is the source of the trauma.

 **though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all.**

This made Lily tear up and James feel a little more hollow in his chest.

 **His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

"Do you think he knows that he looks a lot like you?" Lily asked James in a strained voice.

James, who knew the answer was most likely no, said "I'm not sure."

 **When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some relation coming to take him away,**

"Oh Harry." Sirius said.

 **but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) the strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers**

"The strangest."

 **they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley.**

"Think it's the same guy from the first chapter?"

 **After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green**

"Fashionable." James said.

 **had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very large purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word.**

"Wizards never really learn to be subtle, present or future." Peter said fondly.

 **The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

 **At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy clothes and broken glasses, and nobody like to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

"Really? The whole school is afraid of Tantrum McBratty over here?" Sirius asked.

"I guess so." Remus said while standing up and stretching. He had finished the chapter, and they were reading it for a good while. Again, none of them could be certain about the time, but they all felt it was approximately morning and that breakfast was going to be served soon.

"Since we don't have class, do you want to read chapter three after we eat?" Remus asked, and they all easily agreed.

It was an engrossing tale.

(Author's Note: takes place in 1981 in case you're curious. Also thank you to everyone who left a review! I appreciate all of them! And to the person who asked if I was doing the whole series, that's the plan! It's a lot of work though so I haven't set it in stone, but since people seem to like it it's very possible! I listened to the Heathers soundtrack on repeat for most of the writing of this chapter.)

(the original chapter was 10 pages long. This is 25.)


	3. Chapter 3

Lily didn't join them for breakfast - she walked in with them but as soon as they crossed the threshold of the Great Hall, Susie Holst was had latched herself to her side. Susie was her close friend that somehow thought that they were best friends, even though Lily prefers most people's company. She's not mean or anything like that, but she never seems to have anything interesting to say, but Lily would never say something so rude to someone, so she just smiles and listens and endures.

"Hey, Lily!" She smiled, looping their arms together at the crook. "Let's go find a seat together."

She hesitates for a split second, briefly thinking she should sit with James - the boys, but thinks on how she's never done that before and how it could possibly just make things weird, and leaves with Susie.

"Did he try and ask you out again?" Susie asks, rolling her eyes.

"No, he stopped trying." Lily told her, but it didn't matter, Susie was already talking.

"I'm sorry that you have to deal with him; guys like that are always creeps. It reminds me of one boy who I used to live across the street that I swear was a stalker - "She continued telling this story about this boy she barely remembers and probably never even knew she existed. It gave Lily a good amount of time to just eat and think about this whole book thing.

She couldn't believe that Tuney would turn into this - this cruel person that would treat her nephew like that. She never imagined that she would keep a child in the cupboard, just because he was different or a link to Lily (which was an incredibly saddening thought). If she needed to take in Dudley she would treat him as his own son.

Just like she would treat Harry. How did she treat Harry? Was she a good mother? Was James a good father?

Did she really end up marrying him?

James, this immature boy who played pranks on people just as quick as he would greet them. James, who was biased against Severus even though he was her friend (he ended up right, which is a more saddening thought). James, who apologized when Lily when she blew up on him on how infuriating he was being with his crush.

James, who was the most loyal boy she has ever met and would never turn his back on his friends. James, who stopped picking on Severus even though he kept making himself a bigger and bigger target for them.

"And then, he had the nerve to ask who I was." Susie continued. "And I just didn't appreciate that, I still don't."  
"Some guys just don't understand." Lily focused on her story.

The boys were able to find a section of the table where they were kind off secluded, just a little bit. Just enough so they could almost forget it wasn't just the four of them.

"Drink your milk, Wormtail. You need it to grow into a strong and healthy man." Sirius teased.

"Oh yeah? Then why aren't you drinking any?" Peter asked.

"You can't improve perfection, little Wormtail. You'll understand when you're older."

Peter huffed out laughter while he stabbed his eggs a little too hard. "I'm just as old as you, you know."

"Isn't he older than you?" Remus asked around his bran muffin.

"Stop making up facts, Moony."

James, who shoveled all his food into his mouth as if choking wasn't a real hazard that he should be worried about, looked at all them and asked "Ya guuyff donn?"

"Chew your food, Prongs." Remus didn't even look up from his breakfast.

He swallowed. "You guys done?"

"We've been here for like, a minute."

"I know," He said. "I just… was really hungry."

"Or," Sirius smirked "You're just really eager to get back to spending more time with Evans."

"Or," James countered. "I was just really hungry and you're completely full of shit."

Sirius laughed so hard he almost fell out of his seat.

"So anyways," James said over him. "How about that weather?"

They all made it back in one piece, settling into their arm chairs quickly enough. The tea pot and cups were gone, but they weren't replaced with anything.

Remus settled with a sigh, as if he was already an old man with aching bones.

 **Chapter Three**

 **The Letters From No One**

 **The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry is longest-ever punishment.**

"Oh come the fuck on."

 **By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started**

"He was left in there until summer!" Lily was astonished. "What the fuck is wrong with these people!"

 **and Dudley had already broken his new video camera,**

"They probably bought him a new one."

 **crashed his remote control airplane,**

"Someone should have told him plastic wasn't made to beat over the head of first graders."

 **and, the first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

"She shouldn't have been walking outside while in his presence, it was all her fault."

"She was on crutches." Lily held her face in her hands. "He ran over an old lady who just broke a bone. He probably did it on purpose. I'm going to go into shock."

 **Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang,**

"This is still a thing?"

 **who visited the house every single day.**

"Don't they have their own houses to go to?"

 **Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

"I wouldn't admit that if I was him."

 **The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport:**

"Bowling?"

 **Harry Hunting.**

"A normal sport was too much to ask, wasn't it?"

"A real sport is too much to ask."

 **This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays,**

"Imagine living in such a hellish environment that you want the holidays to end as soon as possible."

"They might actually convince me that Hell exist." Remus said.

 **where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September comes he would be going off to secondary school**

"We already know Harry isn't going to some Muggle secondary school."

 **and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley.**

"A fate no person, no matter how awful, should be subjected to."

 **Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school,**

"What school would accept this kid? They keep talking about how dumb and mean he is."

 **Smeltings,**

"That makes sense actually."

 **Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High,**

"Nope. He's going to Hogwarts. No way around that."

 **the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

"There's nothing wrong with a public school." Lily mothered.

" **They stuff people's head down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry.**

"How he is so sure of that, nobody knows."

" **Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

"What kind of bully asks permission to bully someone?"

"A polite one."

" **No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick."**

At the reading of what possibly may be the best piece of dialogue ever written, they all laughed loudly and proudly.

"Harry - " Sirius coughed. "Merlin - Harry is my favorite godson, of all time."

"He's already funnier than any of us." Peter said.

 **Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

"He could have just walked, I think he would have been safe."

 **One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figgs.**

"I'm sure he liked that a lot." Peter said sarcastically.

 **Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual.**

"Oh, I guess he actually did like it this time."

 **It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before.**

"If the cat lady doesn't like cats anymore, then what is she?"

"A lady."

 **She let Harry watch television and have him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for years.**

"But it's still chocolate." Remus said. "Accept it."

 **That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform.**

"It's a school uniform. Just wear it."

 **Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters.**

" _Disgusting."_

"He's making fun of Harry when he has to wear that?"

 **They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking.**

"It's always a good idea to include distracting items into the school uniform."

 **This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"Does it explain how?"

"Nope. It just expects you to understand."

"Muggles are weird and freighting."

 **As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life.**

"That's just depressing."

 **Aunt Petunia burst into tears**

"She finally realized what kind of son she was raising."

 **and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins,**

"I really wish she was the one to give us our nicknames." Sirius said. "Can you imagine what sort of things she would come up with?"

"Lil' Jameypoo."

"Precious Peteykins."

"Iddy Lilidums."

"Icki . . . " Sirius thought up a bunch of variations on his name. "Siriusums?"

"It just doesn't work for you." Lily said.

"Dammit."

 **he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry couldn't trust himself to speak.**

"Smart."

 **He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

"You're not going to be able to hold it in, it's just impossible."

 **There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast.**

"Petunia finally got some sense and burned Dudley's new uniform."

 **It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink.**

"I wouldn't eat breakfast that morning if I were you."

 **He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.**

"Whatever happened to eggs and bacon?" Remus asked. "I mean, it's not kosher but I don't think they care about that sort of thing."

" **What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.**

"That is a completely valid question that you shouldn't be mad about answering."

" **Your new school uniform," she said.**

 **Harry looked in the bowl again.**

" **Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

"What kind of school are they planning on sending him? A school of fish?" Lily said, trying to resist a smile at her terrible joke.

"That pun is bad and you should feel bad." Was all that James could say.

" **Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

"He's not the one doing Merlin knows what in a sink."

" **I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**

"I have never heard a bigger lie than that one right there."

 **Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue.**

"He thought right. Who knows what else she will put in the sink if he talked back."

 **He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

"He could try to convince them he is rich enough to wear elephant hide casually."

 **Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform.**

"I have this wild new concept for you. If you just _buy_ him a new outfit it wouldn't smell so bad."

 **Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

"Absolutely disgusting."

 **They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

" **Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

" **Make Harry get it."**

"Your legs aren't broken."

" **Get the mail, Harry."**

" **Make Dudley get it."**

" **Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**

"Something about this doesn't seem fair."

 **Harry dodged the Smelting stick**

"That's my boy."

 **and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge,**

"Burn it."

 **who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill,**

"Hi Bill!"

 **and - a letter for Harry.**

 **Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band.**

"He should probably have that checked out."

 **No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him.**

"Oh Harry," Lily said sadly.

"If someone doesn't take one for the team and write him a hundred letters I'm going to cry." Peter said.

 **Who would?**

"I would." Said all five of them, at the same time.

 **He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

 **Mr. H. Potter**

 **The Cupboard under the Stairs**

"What do you think Minnie did when she read that?" Sirius asked.

"All the letters are sent with a spell." Remus said.

"I know that, but you don't think that she would pay extra attention to Harry's letter?" Sirius questioned. "She had to have had a reaction when she read 'cupboard under the stairs'."

 **4 Privet Drive**

 **Little Whinging**

 **Surrey**

 **The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

"Of course not, it's a magic letter." James said.

"Do you know what a stamp is?" Lily asked.

"Of course I do! I'm not an idiot." James said. "It's… something you put on letters."

"Real articulate, Prongs." Sirius teased.

 **Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle,**

"Which should be a raven. The only house with an animal in its name and it isn't even the animal associated with the house. Doesn't make sense."

"A gryphon is an animal, Padfoot."

"But it's spelled differently, so it still makes sense."

 **a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.**

" **Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

"Somebody had to."

 **Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter.**

"He really should have opened it in the hallway."

 **He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

"Rip it open, Harry. You spend so much time with the theatrics it's not going to go down how you want." Peter said. He thought of Sirius.

 **Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill,**

"Not Bill!" Lily gasped. "He had such a long life."

 **snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

" **Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia.**

"She wasn't listening. She was thinking about more ways to waste money on Dudley."

" **Ate a funny whelk, - "**

" **Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

Everyone groaned.

"What did Wormtail say?!" Sirius exclaimed.

 **Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope,**

"Maybe if you spent less time admiring the parchment and more time reading then we wouldn't have this problem."

 **when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

" **That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**

" **Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon,**

"He never becomes any less of an asshole, does he?"

 **shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights.**

"That would be impressive, if I knew how fast that actually was."

 **And it didn't stop there.**

"No sir! We've got more!"

 **Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.**

" **P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

"No need to yell, she's right there."

 **Dudley tried to gasp the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon help it high out of his reach.**

"How short is Dudley that sitting down, Uncle Vernon can put it over his head?"

 **Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment, it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

"Someone help her! She ate the letter!"

" **Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"**

"Did they both forget that they're right next to each other?"

"Muggles don't have object permanence."

 **They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room.**

"My point stands."

 **Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

"Hit him harder."

" **I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

"I also want to learn how to read."

" **I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

"He has a good point. How much you wanna bet they're going to ignore it?"

" **Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon,**

"Also get out that frog in your throat." Lily said.

 **stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

 **Harry didn't move.**

" **I WANT MY LETTER!" He shouted.**

" **Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

"You're seeing it right now," Sirius said. "Just in his hands."

" **OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon,**

"Alright! No need to yell."

 **and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall,**

"Also no need to abuse."

 **slamming the kitchen door behind him. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight**

"As you do."

 **over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between the door and floor.**

"It's a known fact that your hearing improves once you remove your glasses."

"I can tell you from experience that that is false." James said.

" **Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps?"**

"I think you should be more worried that other people know you're keeping a child in the cupboard under the stairs." Remus said.

 **You don't think they're watching the house?"**

"That would be very boring and nobody has time for that."

" **Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"He is really paranoid for somebody that uninteresting to spy on." Peter said.

" **But what should we do, Vernon?" Should we write back? Tell them we don't want - "**

"They will not take no for an answer." Remus said from experience.

 **Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

" **No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer… Yes, that's best… we won't do anything …."**

"He didn't even _try_ to think of something smarter."

"I think he is just scared of anything that will take effort."

" **But -"**

" **I'm not having one in my house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"**

"Wait, hold on. Are they talking about him being a wizard or did he just come out as gay?" Sirius asked. "Because right now he's sounding a lot like my dad."

 **That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before;**

"Ate a vegetable."

 **he visited Harry in his cupboard.**

" **Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**

"No beating around the bush, he just goes straight to the point. I like that."

" **No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly.**

" _Oh my God."_

"Explain how it was a mistake when they knew his exact address, his name, and where he slept?"

"Must have been the H. Potter under his bed."

" **I have burned it."**

"Completely rational."

" **It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."**

"We already talked about all this, Harry. Keep up."

" **SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon,**

"Is that ironic? Yelling silence at the top of your lungs?"

 **and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

"He might need to go the next size up." Peter said.

" **Er - yes, Harry - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking…**

"That's surprising."

 **you're really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.**

" _Dudley's second what?"_

"Dudley gets two bedrooms and Harry gets the cupboard?! TWO BEDROOMS?" James feels like he's going insane.

"This is it." Remus said. "There's no turning back. This people are irredeemable."

" **Why?" said Harry.**

" **Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

 **The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms:**

"THEY HAD FOUR BEDROOMS?!"

 **one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom.**

"These people make my family seem modest." Sirius said.

 **It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him.**

"This is what a bedroom is. You should not be learned what it is at ten years old."

 **Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera**

"So he was being punished from the zoo debacle for around a month?"

"I'm going to strangle these people." Lily said darkly.

 **was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door's neighbor's dog;**

"Does he have respect for any living thing?!"

 **in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been cancelled;**

"They shouldn't have bought him replacement. It's that simple."

 **There was a large birdcage, which once held a parrot**

"Oh God, not the parrot."

 **that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle,**

"Thank fucking goodness, he just wanted a gun." Lily said, then paused. "Why the fuck was he allowed to have a _gun?"_

 **which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it.**

"I was completely expecting to hear that he accidentally shot someone." Peter said. "Listening to all the things this kid has done is literally the worst thing I have ever sat through."

"Even that instance in third year?"

"It doesn't even come close."

 **Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

"Of course they've never been touched. _Of course_."

 **From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother. "I don't want him in there… I need that room… make him get out…"**

"It's filled with all your broken shit! What could you possibly need it for?"

 **Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he's rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

"Okay, so while I'm kind of glad that he finally has a bedroom," Lily started. "even though he should have always have had one - I can't fully be glad about it because I know they're only doing this because the letter freaked them out."

"So what you're saying is…" Sirius continued. "They're horrible people."

"Without a doubt."

 **Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock.**

"Someone had said 'no' to him."

 **He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof,**

"Enough with the animal cruelty!" Sirius begged. "How can I make jokes when this kid is literally _killing animals_ in every scene?"

 **and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

"They both realized they're raising a future serial killer."

 **When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it.**

"Does he still think he's being watched?"

"I think if anyone really was watching them, they would already be in prison."

 **They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one!**

"Fucking Hell, Dudley."

' **Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -"**

 **With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him.**

"I got my money on Harry, any takers?"

"I think you may have a problem, Sirius." Lily said.

 **Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting,**

"They're not the only ones confused, because my goodness can I not picture exactly what is happening." Peter said.

 **in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick,**

"Just take away the stick from him, oh my God."

 **Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.**

"Where do you think Petunia is in this scene? Did she even stop eating her breakfast?"

"Watching these idiots wrestle in a hallway is not worth getting your waffles cold."

" **Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom." He wheezed at Harry. "Dudley - go - just go."**

 **Harry walked round and round in his new room.**

"Because he can do that now that he isn't stuffed in a cupboard."

 **Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again?**

"Oh yes," Remus said. "You don't have to worry about not getting that letter, Harry. It'll come."

 **And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

 **The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning.**

"Merlin, that's too early. Wake up in four more hours."

 **Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

 **He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first.**

"Why didn't he sleep out in front of the door? That way he can make sure he gets it first." Remus pondered.

 **His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door -**

 **Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!**

"What the Hell?" James asked.

"Did one of the Dursley's just take your idea, Moony?" Sirius asked, a huge shit-eating grin spread across his face.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Remus said. "I would never have the same idea as any of these bastards."

"You know what they say," He continued to smile "Great minds think ali-"

He was interrupted when Remus attempted to smother him with his cushion. He didn't succeed, of course, because that would be murder, and even though Sirius is not considered an animal, he doesn't want two things in common with the Dursley's.

 **Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy, something had been his uncle's face.**

"Now step on him 3000 more times."

 **Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bad, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do.**

Sirius opened his mouth to tease him some more, but Remus raised his voice and kept reading.

 **He shouted at Harry for about half an hour**

"Did he time it? Was he trying to set some record?"

 **and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap.**

"So he shouted at Harry while sitting down the entire time? That's not very intimidating."

 **Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

" **I want - " he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

"That's just cruel."

 **Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day.**

"But if he doesn't go to work, then how is he supposed to pay for replacements of everything Dudley owns?"

 **He stayed home and nailed up the mail slot.**

" **See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

"Not even close." Was all that Remus had to say.

" **I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

"Listen to your wife."

" **Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

"You can't make this shit up."

 **On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

"A full twenty-four hours hasn't even passed and he was proven wrong. Amazing."

"I'm just thinking about all the trees torn down and made into letters, just to be destroyed." Lily said.

 **Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors**

"So, did he just trap all of them inside the house?" Peter asked.

"He would rather die than have Harry read a letter."

 **so no one could go out.**

"He literally is risking all their lives because of these letters." Peter shook his head.

 **He hummed 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

"Everyone in that house is going to die because of this guy."

 **On Saturday, things began to get out of hand.**

"Began to?!"

 **Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window.**

"I guess all these letters are really starting to _egg up_ their day." Lily bit back a smile at her pun.

"You're no longer allowed to read with us." James said.

"Oh but James," Lily frowned. "That would make me feel like I have an egg on my face."

"You're dead to me."

 **While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

"The next morning, her fruit smoothie tasted like ink and parchment."

" **Who on Earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

 **On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

" **No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully**

"That doesn't mean shit when owls are delivering the letters. Owls don't need a day off."

 **as he spread marmalade on his newspapers,**

"It'll be hard to read about more reasons you hate foreigners when there's fruit preserves covering the words."

" **no damn letters today -"**

 **Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursley's ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one.**

"There's some on the ground though….. he could just pick one up from the ground…."

"Give him some credit, adrenaline really fucks up your brain."

" **Out! OUT!"**

 **Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces,**

"All this hysteria over a bunch of letters."

"To be fair, they were coming out of the fireplace, which is slightly unusual."

 **Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

" **That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time.**

"Which is incredibly challenging and almost deserving of respect."

" **I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

"If you need more than five minutes to pack then I'm leaving without you."

 **He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later**

"Not only is he abusive, but he's a liar as well. Nice."

 **they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"He was completely willing to pack no clothes and just his useless junk."

 **They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going.**

"She should. Marriage is a partnership, and if one person is having a mental breakdown they should at least inform the other person how far they are willing to go to ruin the entire family's life."

 **Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off… shake'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

"The letters aren't following you, dumbass."

 **They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling.**

"This road trip sounds like it really went to the dogs." The pun was made funnier to Lily when everyone else groaned like they had been punched.

 **He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

"So not only are aliens real, but this kid has been killing them indiscreetly."

 **Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets.**

"I would hate to know exactly what happened to those sheets."

 **Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering….**

 **They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day.**

"But no tea! The hotel should be ashamed."

 **They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

"' **Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H Potter?**

"Yes. It's the skinny abused child. Help."

 **Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

 **She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

 **Mr. H. Potter**

 **Room 17**

 **Railview Hotel**

 **Cokeworth**

 **Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

"That should be a sign that something is alright with this family."

" **I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

" **Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her.**

"The insanity has caused him to go deaf."

 **Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, go out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again.**

"Petunia should have taken advantage of him being out of the car and gotten into the driver's seat and floored it."

 **The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, hallway across a suspension bride, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

"Okay, I can't guess what he's looking for." Remus said. "None of these places have anything in common."

"He's looking for a place where the evil foreign letters won't get to him," James said. "Obviously."

" **Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.**

"You just got that kid?"

 **Uncle Vernon has parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

"He's going to see if he can walk home and back before they all starve to death."

 **It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.**

" **It's Monday," he told his mother.**

"He had just learned the days of the week and wants her to be impressed with him."

" **The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."**

"I think you would be lucky to stay someplace with a bed, since Vernon considered a parking garage just a few paragraphs ago."

 **Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television -**

"Even when he hasn't watched it and days."

 **then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday.**

"What a crummy way to spend your birthday." Peter said, and everybody frowned.

 **Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.**

"Can't they be decent human beings for one moment? Please?"

 **Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

"Only 365 days."

 **Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

"Honey, I don't know how to say this, but I've replaced you with this long, hard, portable package."

" **Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**

 **It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea.**

"We're hunting rocks tonight!"

 **Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.**

"How is that certain? They haven't been inside yet. They could be pleasantly surprised."

" **Stormy forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully,**

"Because I want me and my family to drown!"

 **clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!**

 **A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin,**

"He must be really evil to make a toothless grin looked wicked."

 **at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

" **I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon.**

"But only for myself. The rest of you are fishing for dinner."

"None of them have a fishing rod though." Peter said.

"That's part of the challenge. Make your own."

" **so all aboard!"**

 **It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces.**

"All this suffering just because of those damn letters."

 **After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

 **The inside was horrible;**

"A house like this is hard to keep up, since it's only reachable by boat. Frankly it shouldn't even have been built."

 **it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

"All in all it was a rather nice house to start a family in."

 **Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas.**

"They should have just stuck to my fishing idea." James t'sked.

 **He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.**

" **Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**

"At least he's happy. Not like they're stuck in the middle of nowhere with a storm on the way or anything."

 **He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail.**

"I'm sure somebody will." Lily said. "Someone really desperate to make their quota."

 **Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

 **As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in a second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa.**

"He already has a bed, he's using the couch. I wouldn't be surprised if they did this just to give Harry less blankets."

 **She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and curled up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

"These people are even humans anymore." Sirius said.

 **The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep.**

"He needs to be in a bed, at home." Lily said. "No kid should be somewhere unstable in the middle of a storm."

 **He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger.**

Everyone's heart was breaking in sympathy, but there was nothing more they could think to say. The Dursleys were so horrible they ran their dialogue options dry.

 **Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight.**

"How did he get to sleep? Harry can't be the only one kept awake by the storm."

 **The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minute's time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all,**

"Would it make the situation better if they did?" Peter asked. "I wouldn't think so."

 **wondering where the letter writer was now.**

 **Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmed if it did.**

"If he wasn't an actual child making this dark as fuck joke, I think I would laugh." Sirius said.

 **Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

 **Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

"What's happening outside?" Peter asked, before being shushed by everyone on the edge of their seats.

 **One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -**

"I would." James said.

 **three… two… one…**

 **BOOM.**

The room jumped back as Remus yelled the word; none of them could be mad though, because they were all so damn curious.

 **The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

They all looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate, and Remus even looked pained at stopping himself and closing the book.

"No! That can't be the end!" Sirius said.

"Just the end of the chapter." Remus reasoned. "But it's a good time for a break, I think."

"You're an asshole." James said, even though he really needed to go to the bathroom.

"We can all meet back in ten minutes, but I need to stretch my muscles."

(Author's Note: I'm about to start class so updates will be slower, but it's only four days a week so not that much slower. Thank you to everyone who left a review!)

(The original was 12 pages long. This is 23 pages.)


	4. Chapter 4

James, Sirius, and Peter took this as the perfect time to take a bathroom break, which left Lily and Remus to stand, stretch, and not know what to do with each other now that they're alone.

"So," Lily said, elbows on the back of her chair, standing lazily.

"So…" Remus trailed off, fingers itching to continue reading. He didn't have much to say to Lily - they respected each other a great deal, and probably had a lot in common, but he's rarely in the mood for conversations that have no real point.

"I have a question to ask." She leans on her elbows and cups her face into her hands.

"I might have an answer."

"I noticed you said Merlin, even though you were raised as a Muggle….." Lily let it trail off as Remus patiently waited for the actual question. "I guess I was just wondering why that was."

"Well," Remus said. "My dad always said Merlin, so I just learned it that way."

Lily nodded. "Your dad was a wizard?"

"Yeah, he also raised us Jewish, so Merlin is just more proper."

"Oh, yeah," She said. "I get that."

He nodded, mostly because he didn't know about to respond, and they sat in an awkward silence until the boys came back.

 _Thank goodness,_ they both thought, eager to get back to something easier to talk about. Though Lily's thought was tinged with a feeling of failure of stepping even slightly more inside their friend circle.

"Hey assholes." Sirius greeted them. He sprayed out on his armchair as everyone else settled in a more normal posture and Remus started reading as soon as it looked like everyone was ready to listen.

 **Chapter Four**

 **The Keeper of the Keys**

 **BOOM**

"You know, it's not as effective as the first time." James frowned and shook his head.

 **They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.**

"Even the book is making fun of him for us."

 **There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands -**

" _He brought a gun with him."_

"Does this guy actually care about the safety of his family?" Peter asked, while Lily was babbiling gibberish at the ideocracy of it all.

" - they don't even have beds but he has a _rifle!_ A RIFLE!"

"Lily," James called her, but she did not seem to hear him. "Lily - Lily!" She turned her head sharply. "While I deeply, truly appreciate your motherly instincts kicking in - it's even admirable, I would say - I think the best thing is not to get lost in this man's hypocrisy. We would be here all day."

James hoped to calm her down with something humorous, and while she didn't laugh, she did relax enough to smile softly and get out of her head.

 **now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.**

"I think I like what I implied more." Sirius said.

Lily thought about how he didn't buy them dinner, but he did have the money to buy a gun, but she bit her tounge.

" **Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"**

"Oh yes, I'm sure they're _so_ scared."

 **There was a pause. Then -**

 **SMASH!**

 **The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges**

"That's rather rude."

 **and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.**

 **A giant of a man was standing in the doorway.**

"Why don't you come on in, you already made yourself welcome."

 **His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy man of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.**

"HAGRID!" They all happily exclaimed, almost like they were welcoming their favorite person to join them at the bar.

 **The giant squeezed his way into the hut,**

"I don't think those waterlogged floors will support all of Hagrid."

 **stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame.**

"Aww, that's so sweet." Lily said. "Even though that really doesn't help much."

"What are you talking about? It's back where it's supposed to be. The door is fixed." Sirius said seriously.

Lily was hit with her first taste of how _really_ ignorant Sirius was. All she could do is grin manically and vow to bring this up whenever she can.

 **The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.**

" **Couldn't made us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey…."**

"You literally just ripped their door off, Hagrid."

 **He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.**

" **Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.**

"He hasn't even officially met him yet and he already _knows_."

 **Dudley squeaked**

"Yep, that settles it." Peter said. "He's my evil twin."

 **And ran to hide behind his mother, who was coaching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.**

"They can both fit behind his father?"

Peter couldn't help but feel that that comment occurring right after he compared himself to Dudley was possibly a passive-aggressive dug. It settled in his heart, and, at least in the moment, didn't think highly of Sirius. He gets these moments so often, and they last longer each time, he often wonders if it would be better if he didn't hang out with them.

It's not like the others are much better, in his mind. James is so loyal, loyal to a fault. Like he just expects Peter to stay being his friend no matter what. And Remus, who was the first one Peter met and the one he's probably most close too. He's the reason why Peter even learned how to be an animagus, and he supposes no other friendship will have the bond you create once you run in the wild with them.

But, still, Remus makes feel so…. slow, stupid, and insignificant. But he doesn't crack jokes about it like Sirius does, he's worse. He tries to 'help'. He pities him, Peter knows.

If he stopped being friends with, however, who would he have to turn too? Who would protect him? Where would he have the same adventures, if he were to leave them? The price is too high; he has to stay.

Even if he slowly, slowly is starting to dislike them more than he ever wanted.

" **An' here's Harry!" said the giant.**

 **Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.**

"Adorable."

" **Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."**

James and Lily turned pink and refused to make eye contact while the other three looked between them either smiling, smirking, or full on laughing to themselves.

 **Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.**

"I really can't imagine what noise he made."

" **I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"**

"Literally."

" **Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily if it had been made of rudder,**

"Fucking amazing."

"He didn't even get up from the seat." Peter was amazed.

"Hagrid is just the absolute best." James said. "I'm going to give him a hug next time I see him."

 **and threw it into a corner of the room.**

"Should have thrown it in the bin."

"They probably don't even have _that_."

 **Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodded on.**

Peter gasped and pretended to be hurt. "That _really_ hurt!"

Lily was starting to be very confused with all these reactions whenever animals were mentioned, but she knows she isn't going to get a real answer. They're just going to say it's all an inside joke and brush it off, so she doesn't want to try.

At least, not yet.

" **Anyway - Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh."**

"He remembered!"

"At this rate I'm just going to join Hagrid for tea." James said. "Well, more often than I do already."

 **Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."**

 **From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.**

"He got him a cake." Lily was so touched by this started tearing up a little.

The others were at the same state, but all pretended that that they are Completely Fine and are just happy that Harry is being treated nicely for once and is actually being cared for like a child should be.

 **Harry looked at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth,**

"That's very rude." Remus said. "He sat on a cake for you and everything."

"He's been living with the Dursleys his whole life." Peter pointed out.

"True. We should be grateful he thought about saying thank you."

 **and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"**

"That's a perfectly valid question." Sirius said. "But he also gave you a cake, so say thank you first."

 **The giant chuckled.**

" **True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid,**

The teenagers cheered, just for the sake of cheering on someone close to them.

 **Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts."**

 **He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.**

"You get used to that."

" **What about that tea then, eh?" he said,**

"Back to the most important part of any conversation; the tea."

 **rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."**

"He's going to drink in front of the kids?" Lily asked, whose parents would never do that sort of thing.

James shrugged, not used to thinking so traditionally. "It's cold. It's an easy way to warm you up."

"But I'll bet he won't give Harry any." Sirius shook his head. "The least he could do is share."

 **His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later; there was a roaring fire there.**

"Finally! Throw Vernon in it."

 **It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.**

"I can't make a joke about this." Sirius said. "I'm just happy that Harry isn't freezing his bollocks off anymore."

 **The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight,**

"I don't think this _moth eaten couch_ is quite up to the standard for a man like Hagrid."

 **and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages,**

"Who would describe a package of sausages as _squashy?_ That's just unappetizing."

 **a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea.**

"I want to know why he thought he would need to bring all these things for the trip." Lily said.

"He probably just had those things in his jacket already." Remus said. "He keeps a lot of things in his coat at all times."

 **Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage.**

"Nothing quite goes with a storm like a stranger making sausage with your fireplace."

 **Nobody said a thing while the giant was working,**

"Very few situations can be as tense as this one."

 **but as he slid the first six, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."**

"In theory that's good advice." Lily said. "But he literally ate a bag of chips and a banana for dinner, and if he was going to poison the food, you would think he wouldn't barge in and make it for himself."

 **The giant chuckled darkly.**

" **Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."**

"But he should eat something more than chips and a banana."

"Are you mothering this Child of Everything Evil and Unholy?" Sirius asked.

"He's still a child, even though he's a bigger monster than any other child to ever exist."

 **He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful,**

"Just wait until he tries sausages that aren't burnt."

 **but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant.**

"Staring is rude, Harry."

 **Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."**

"You know his first and last name, that's all you need."

 **The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.**

" **Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm the Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."**

"Oh no."

 **"Er - no," said Harry.**

 **Hagrid looked shocked.**

"I wish I could say that." Remus said. "But we spent the better part of two days with these people, and I don't think they could surprise us much more."

 **"Sorry," Harry said quickly.**

"That's probably a reflex for him." James said sadly.

"It's not your fault Harry." Lily said, as if he could hear them.

" **Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows.**

"Where they probably came from."

"Don't insult the shadows like that. They actually contribute something good to the people, like shade and a good hiding place from when you were caught doing something you shouldn't have been doing." Sirius said.

 **"It' s them as should be sorry!**

"Preach!"

 **I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"**

"Oh God."

 **"All what?" asked Harry.**

 **"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered.**

"Give a moment of silence, for shortly after this the Dursleys were murdered with no mercy."

Remus did not hesitate in reading ahead and no one blamed him.

 **"Now wait jus' one second!"**

 **He had leapt to his feet.**

"I was just joking but I think he may really kill them."

"Good." Lily said, then thought about it. "Not the boy. Give him to a family that will raise him right."

 **In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.**

 **"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy - this boy! - knows nothin' abou' - about ANYTHING?"**

"He's not completely ignorant." Sirius said. "He knows how to get out of the way when the Dursleys get into an abusive mood."

He was met with awkward silence.

"Too dark?"

 **Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.**

"Not what he means, but good on you."

 **"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."**

"But he doesn't do English no good."

 **But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."**

 **"What world?"**

 **Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.**

"I don't think this sodden, musty hut can handle Hagrid when he's this angry."

"Most things can't handle Hagrid period."

 **"DURSLEY!" he boomed.**

 **Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble."**

"A Muggle prayer."

 **Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.**

 **"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous.**

"That's not something I want to be remembered for." James said honestly. Lily nodded in agreement.

 **You're famous."**

 **"What? My - my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"**

Sirius opened his mouth to make an affectionally insulting comment but Lily shushed him before he could do it.

 **"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.**

 **"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.**

"A kid that deserves better."

 **Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.**

 **"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"**

"He 'forbids him'" Peter said. "What is he going to do? Go back to that parking garage and have a good cry?"

 **A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him;**

"But what did he do?"

"Wet himself."

 **when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.**

 **"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"**

"I'm sure it really tore them up." Remus said blankly.

 **"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.**

 **"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.**

"He really panics over things that shouldn't be that big of a deal." Peter said.

"To be fair, a child learning the truth about his family and heritage is a pretty big deal." Lily said.

 **Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.**

"Her husband actually doing something! The horror!"

 **"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry - yet a wizard."**

 **There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.**

There was not silence in the room, however, as the teenagers were all whooping and hollering at the reveal.

 **"- a what?" gasped Harry.**

 **"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid,**

"MAGIC IS REAL, HARRY!" Sirius screamed.

 **sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be?**

"Aww, Hagrid." James teased. "I'm going to blush to my roots."

 **An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."**

"Fucking finally."

 **Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.**

"What an address." Sirius shook his head. "Again, did no one notice that his room is _the floor?"_

 **He pulled out the letter and read:**

 **HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

 **Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE**

 **(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

"I'm sure this means a lot to an eleven-year-old kid who just learned about magic."

 **Dear Mr. Potter,**

 **We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.**

 **Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**

 **Yours sincerely,**

 **Minerva McGonagall,**

 **Deputy Headmistress**

"I remember when I got my letter." James started reminiscing. "It was the best day of my life. I woke up and my parents were smiling, like they were on the inside of this big joke and they were waiting for me to figure it out. I didn't even drink my pumpkin juice before I asked them what the big deal was. That's when my mom's smile got even bigger and she pulled the letter out from behind her back and presented it like it was the best gift I could have ever gotten. And it was."

Lily smiled. "That's so sweet. McGonagall came down personally to explain things to me and my family. My parents were pretty shocked about magic being real, and everything, but me and Tuney were so excited! We thought it was just amazing that I was a witch! We used to play together before….. things changed." She left it at that, suddenly not so hot about sharing things anymore.

"McGonagall came to my house too." Peter said. "My parents still didn't believe it until they turned my dad's favorite armchair into a pile of frogs. It was weird that it took that much though, because she came out of the fireplace and all."

"Dumbledore came over to my house." Remus said.

"Didn't you say your dad was a wizard?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, but I was - a 'special case' you could say." Lily got the feeling that she was the only one that didn't know the whole story, and that combined with when he implied his parents also ignored all his letters, she was starting to get desperate to either to get a good footing with this group or just accept that she doesn't fit.

"I got my letter before my parents really started to figure out that they hate me." Sirius added. "That's the whole story."

 **Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"**

"Out of all the questions you could start with…"

"Give him a break, he's new at this questions thing."

 **"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid,**

"Why is the Gorgon galloping, exactly?"

"I have never heard that saying before and I never want to hear it again." Sirius said.

 **clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse,**

"He could get a real headache doing that."

 **and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl -**

" _Why does he have an owl in his pocket?"_

"Was it kept in the same pocket as the sausages? That's just unhygienic."

 **a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:**

"He's a talented kid." Sirius said. "I mean, Wormtail here can barely read the right way up." He meant it in the fondest way it could be said.

Peter laughed, feeling a real stab of insecurity. "I only have trouble reading your terrible handwriting."

Sirius chuckled for real, without a second, hidden emotion behind it.

 **Dear Professor Dumbledore,**

 **Given Harry his letter. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.**

 **Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.**

 **Hagrid**

 **Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm.**

"That poor fucking owl."

 **Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.**

"The what?"

"A hunk of plastic you talk into and someone across the world replies to you."

"Thank you."

 **Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.**

 **"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.**

"Please move closer to the fire, possibly jump into it if you're feeling helpful."

" **He's not going," he said.**

"Who's going to stop him? You?" Sirius asked. "He bent your only weapon like it was shit, arsehole."

 **Hagrid grunted.**

" **I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him,"**

"That's exactly what I said."

" **A what?" said Harry, interested.**

" **A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."**

"To be fair," Lily started. "Muggle does not inherently mean bad and it shouldn't imply that. There are a lot of Muggles who aren't shit-stains of the Earth."

"It all stems from the pure-blood point of view that having magic makes you better and that idea has stuck itself into common conjecture that not a lot of people think about what they imply." Remus said in a monotone, suggesting that he's thought about this a lot.

"Oh," Lily said. "Thank you. I never thought of it that way."

 **"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"**

"I don't think magic is something you can _beat_ and _abuse_ out of a child."

 **"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a - a wizard?"**

 **"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was?**

"Love you too, Tuney." Lily mumbled to herself, and while it was clearly heard, the boys did the respectful thing and pretend they all lost their hearing for three seconds.

 **Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that that school and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats.**

"I can't even - " Lily sighed and leaned back, rubbing her forehead. She was going to explain that she can't use magic outside of school, but realized about useless that would really be.

 **I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak!**

Remus paused for respect but Lily waved him on.

 **But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"**

 **She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.**

Years and years' worth of pent up anger was landing directly on Lily, who was having a harder time pretending that none of this was landing at all.

 **"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"**

"Oh come the fuck on!" Lily exclaimed. Her tears were starting to fall, but, stubbornly, she refused to wipe them. "I can't believe she's blaming me for getting killed! That - fucking - "

James got up from his seat and walked to her side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. For the time being, he didn't think of her as the girl he had a crush on, but rather someone that needed comfort. It was easy for him to not panic this time around.

Lily wanted to lean her face into his shoulder and let the tears come barging out. She wanted to wrap his arm around his waist and forget the other people were there. She wanted to go back home and try another desperate attempt to repair her and her sister's relationship. But she didn't do any of those things. Instead, she sat shock upright and let most of her walls stay up, cracked, but still standing. She mumbled thank you with her head down.

The other three did exactly what you would expect from them: Peter panicked and froze, Remus avoided eye contact and waited for the awkward situation to pass, and Sirius was inappropriate.

"What does she matter, anyway?" He asked. "She's a bitch, and horrible, and you're not. You're amazing and if she can't see that than she's not worth it. Find someone else that means that much to you that won't lock your kid in a closet."

Lily laughed, and said "I see your point." quietly. It didn't really help much, but a laugh can't do much harm when it's applied correctly.

It was more than ten minutes before Lily was composed, with no more tears coming out of puffy eyes. James had returned to his seat, and everyone felt like the thick cloud of emotion had cleared enough that they could continue.

 **Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"**

 **"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner.**

"Like roaches." Peter made a face of disgust.

 **"How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"**

"He's raising an excellent point."

 **"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently**

 **The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.**

"I can relate." Peter nodded.

 **"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someone's gotta - yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."**

 **He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.**

"We all know exactly who's fault this is."

 **"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..."**

"Oh great, my death is a horribly written mystery novel." He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, then looked towards Lily to see if she laughed.

She smirked, a little, and said "It's our death, arsehole. Your ego so big you forgot I was there too?"

 **He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"**

"Stop stalling."

 **"Who? "**

 **"Well - I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."**

 **"Why not?"**

 **"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry,**

"Now the gargoyles are gulping. None of these animals should be doing these actions, and it shouldn't be a phrase people say regularly."

 **people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go.**

"Understatement of the century." Remus mouthed to himself.

 **Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."**

 **Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.**

 **"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.**

 **"Nah -can't spell it. All right - Voldemort. "**

Remus would love to say that he still wasn't hesitating greatly, and everyone else would love to say that they didn't wince, but that would all be a grievous lie.

 **Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too -**

"On sale and everything. Saved a ton."

 **some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power,**

If anybody asked, Peter would say that he couldn't understand that at all. But, on the inside, all he can think is how _horrible_ the feeling is when you're kicked down and can't get back up on your own.

 **'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust,**

James smiled and quickly looked over at all of his friends, glad that he had multiple people that he would not hesitate to put his life in their hands.

 **didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him - an' he killed 'em. Horribly.**

"An amazing thing to tell a kid when they know literally nothing else about the world. Maybe start with something a bit happier, like the crippling poverty of a great deal of witches and wizards."

"Or lack of legal protection against the systemic discrimination against muggleborns."

"You know," Lily said. "The wizarding world is pretty similar to the muggle world, just with a different code of paint."

 **One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.**

"Please tell me that's not foreshadowing."

 **"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew.**

"Aww," Lily cooed, as James went "Suck it arseholes." to everyone else in the room.

 **Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day!**

"Well, there goes the mystery."

 **Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.**

"I imagine that if The Bastard came to you and asked you to join his side, you'd throw your wand away and sock him." Sirius said.

"Hell yeah I would."

 **"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' - an' -"**

It never gets easier, hearing how close friends of yours got murdered. But they were able to stew in the emotions for a minute, before repressing them deeply and moving on.

 **Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.**

 **"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad - knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find - anyway..."**

"Oh Hagrid, you're going to make me cry again." Lily joked, but not really.

 **"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then - an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it**

"….. Morally?" Peter asked.

"I don't know why he suddenly had a problem with Harry." Sirius pointed out. "He's done worse than one kid, up close."

 **Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a Powerful, evil curse touches yeh -**

"Okay, so You-Know-Who actually tried to kill him, but he couldn't? Physically?"

"What the fuck is so special about your kid, Prongs?"

 **took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -**

"But not in the 'draw you a bath and do the dishes for you' kind of way."

 **but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry.**

"Couldn't he have been famous for writing a book?"

 **No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts -**

"Oh God," Lily gasped and covered her face.

"Let's just -" Remus started. "Mourn them now. It isn't going to get any easier if he names anybody else we know that dies. Just take a breather, and mourn everyone."

 **an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."**

 **Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before - and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.**

"Fuck off, you evil Bastard."

 **Hagrid was watching him sadly.**

 **"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."**

"Not your fault, Hagrid. Stop blaming yourself."

 **"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there.**

"I wish I did."

"I wish forgetting them made them not exist."

 **Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage.**

"For about two seconds."

 **He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.**

 **"Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured -**

"Again, _I was just joking when I said that."_

 **and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -**

"Nobody asked, you sopping ball sack."

 **asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types -**

"A wizard with wizard's friends was asking to get murdered. Okay."

 **just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end -"**

"He meant hoping."

 **But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat.**

"Oh Great Merlin, he brought out the umbrella." Sirius moved to the edge of his seat. "Use it!"

 **Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley -I'm warning you - one more word... "**

 **In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.**

"NOW HE DOES SOMETHING SMART?"

 **"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.**

"That couch deserves some mercy."

 **Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.**

 **"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You-Know-Who?"**

"He stopped himself from saying his name because it made Hagrid uncomfortable. That's so sweet!"

 **"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful - why'd he go?**

"He didn't even die?! He disappeared?!" Sirius exclaimed.

"He might have died, but they just never found the body…" Remus tried to explain, but it seemed flimsy.

"I understand we constantly make jokes about useless the Ministry is, but there has to be more to this." Sirius begged.

 **"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.**

"I don't accept that. Even vampires can die." Sirius said. "The Bastard can die."

 **Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don~ reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.**

"We're we able tell the difference between the two?"

"The Minister probably just took their word on it."

 **"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."**

"Must have asked him to solve a really hard riddle."

 **Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes,**

"Thank you, Hagrid."

"He probably isn't used to that look."

 **but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake.**

"He really needs to build up some self-confidence."

"How is he supposed to do that while surrounded by the _Dursleys?"_

 **A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard?**

"Is he not thinking about all those strange moments that was previously explained to us?"

"I guess not. Magic is only important when it comes to frogs and toads."

 **If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?**

"Should I even ask what a football is?"

"It's a thing you kick around."

"Thank you. I never would have come to that conclusion, for I have never left this room and barely know how to breathe."

 **"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."**

 **To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.**

 **"Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"**

"Like the snake glass, for instance?"

 **Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry...**

"Did he never think about that?"

"Give him some credit -"

"You said that before."

"Yes, but still - he grew up with the Dursleys. Give him some credit."

 **chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?**

"Well, you set it free. It wasn't all that interested in revenge on your part."

 **Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.**

"Hagrid has the best smiles."

 **"See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."**

"I think there are more important things than being famous in your school." Lily said. "Like learning, for example."

 **But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.**

"Just give up, disgusting waste of air."

"Wow Padfoot, tell us how you really feel." Remus said sarcastically.

 **"Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish - spell books and wands and -"**

"You need books to go to school. Shocking!"

 **"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts!**

"Hogwarts or bust!"

 **Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself.**

"I think it's more like he will know himself more than he ever thought he would, but go on, It's a great speech."

 **He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled-"**

 **"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL To TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.**

"Now he's gone and done it."

 **But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head,**

"YES! USE IT ON THE MAD BASTARD!"

"You're getting a bit too excited over there."

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

 **"NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDOREIN- FRONT- OF- ME!"**

 **He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley -**

"He wasn't even the one who pissed him off!" Lily said. "Like, he most likely deserves whatever he's getting, but he wasn't even the one who insulted Dumbledore! Vernon did that!"

 **there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.**

"Only a tail?"

"It was apparently very painful. More than that would have killed him."

"Hopefully what he takes from this is less animal cruelty."

 **Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.**

"At least they're gone."

 **Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.**

 **"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully,**

"Most likely, but also thank you."

 **"but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."**

"Don't think that's how it works."

"You can say transfiguration isn't your strength, Hagrid." Sirius said. "We won't judge."

 **He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.**

 **"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm - er - not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'.**

"Isn't there a way to track when magic was done in front of Muggles?" Peter asked.

"Yes, but it most likely won't be noticed in this case." Remus explained. "They would have noticed that there's an eleven-year-old kid in the house, and his powers aren't under control yet, so they will just chalk it up to him."

 **I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff - one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job.**

 **"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.**

 **"Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself but I - er - got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."**

"I… didn't know any of this." Lily said.

"I don't think it ever came up for us." James frowned. "Do you think he was ashamed?"

"He could have possibly gotten less ashamed in twenty years."

 **"Why were you expelled?"**

 **"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly.**

"Just a bit less ashamed, it seems."

 **"Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."**

 **He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.**

"He's probably swimming in it."

 **"You can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."**

Remus closed the book, signifying the end of the chapter.

"Keep reading!" Sirius hit his knees with his fists, and everyone else were just as eager to keep going. Remus shrugged his shoulders and opened the book back up.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

 **Diagon Alley**

"We're finally leaving Hell, thank goodness."

 **Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shit tight.**

"Trying to get as much sleep as possible. Smart."

 **"It was a dream, he told himself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be home in my cupboard."**

"Does he also think he dreamed he was travelling for 12 hours with a crazy person?"

"They probably haven't left yet, since that would be a weird thing to go through and then think didn't happen."

 **There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.**

"It's me. I've come to give you unconditional love."

 **And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.**

"You know," Lily started "It's sad that he thinks it was all a dream, but I'm just excited for him to get proof that it wasn't and he's finally going to be able to leave this abusive shit-hole."

 **Tap. Tap. Tap.**

 **"All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up."**

 **He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him.**

"That could have smothered him in his sleep."

 **The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa,**

"I'm surprised they didn't kick him out." Peter commented.

"How would they even be able to do that? He can't do jack shit." Sirius replied.

 **and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.**

 **Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him.**

"Happiness must feel weird when you grow up without any." James said.

 **He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.**

 **"Don't do that."**

 **Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.**

"Violent language for a tiny owl."

 **"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl."**

 **"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.**

"Like the good John he is."

 **"What?"**

 **"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets -**

"That sure does narrow it down, thank you Hagrid." Remus said sarcastically.

 **bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags...**

"Who knows when you need tea, peppermint humbugs, and multiple balls of string at the same time."

"Personally, I would be dead by now if I didn't carry around balls of string everywhere I go."

 **finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.**

 **"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.**

" **Knuts?"**

"Poor kid will be looking for peanuts…."

 **"The little bronze ones."**

 **Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.**

"They never want to stay and cuddle." Sirius pouted.

"Don't be so sad, Padfoot." Remus said. "You're used to people giving you money and kicking you out."

Sirius let his mouth gape in offense as the rest of them giggled dramatically.

"I'm never talking to you again, arsehole." He turned his body so he was facing the cusions and huffed in annoyance.

"Love you too, honey."

 **Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.**

 **"Best be Off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."**

 **Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.**

"He should get that checked out." Peter said.

 **"Um - Hagrid?" "Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.**

"You know what they say about people with big feet." Sirius said, unable to contain himself. He turned back around, apparently out of his funk at the ability to make a dick joke.

 **"I haven't got any money - and you heard Uncle Vernon last night ... he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."**

"You don't need Uncle Vernon to put you through school." James bragged, hoping it didn't sound like bragging.

"Yeah, especially with me as his Godfather." Sirius said, then paused as if he just thought of something. "Where the fuck am I and why am I not acting as a Godfather?" He shouted.

Remus opened his mouth, but couldn't come up with an answer. "Where are any of us?" He may be the least qualified person in the room to take care of a child, but he could still do more for Harry than give him nothing but the cupboard under the stairs.

"You were mentioned earlier, so you have to still be around." Peter said. He sincerely doubts they would still consider him part of the group when they leave school, but he doesn't think they would pass him up as a guardian and leave Harry with the Dursleys. Would they? He must mean more than that to them.

"The only way to find out is if we keep reading." James became the voice of reason, just as desperate as the rest of them to figure out the whole story.

 **"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"**

"Exactly," James smiled confidently.

 **"But if their house was destroyed -"**

 **"They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy!**

"Cut him a break Hagrid, you become ignorant about a lot of things is questions aren't allowed in the house."

 **Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold - an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."**

"But he gave it to Harry, wouldn't it be considered rude to eat your gift?" Peter asked.

"It's still a birthday cake, Wormtail." Sirius said. "You don't refuse to let someone get a slice just because they brought it."

 **"Wizards have banks?"**

"Out of all the things we don't have, he's asking if he have banks."

 **"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."**

"We don't even have banks. We have a bank. Bloody Hell." Lily said.

 **Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding. "Goblins?" "Yeah - so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that.**

"Because a dragon is guarding the treasure!" Sirius blurted out.

"This isn't the time for stories, Padfoot." Remus chastised him in a patronizing tone. "This is the time for a book from and about the future."

 **Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe - 'cept maybe Hogwarts.**

"If you compare the wellbeing of children to valuable items, then I agree."

 **As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you gettin' things from Gringotts - knows he can trust me, see.**

"Of course," James said. "Everyone trusts Hagrid."

"Unless it's to keep a secret." Sirius said.

James sighed. "Yeah, but he tries. Merlin, does he try."

 **"Got everythin'? Come on, then."**

 **Harry followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired**

"Hopefully he gave it a good enough wage."

 **was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.**

 **"How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat.**

 **"Flew," said Hagrid.**

 **"Flew?"**

"Does he have his own broom?"

"He probably used the school brooms."

"Those brooms can barely hold me." James said. "He could have bloody died!"

 **"Yeah - but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh."**

 **They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.**

"Right there with ya, kid."

 **"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter - er - speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"**

Sirius gasped. "Hagrid," he clutched his heart in disbelief, "are you considering… breaking the rules?"

 **"Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic.**

"And he's not stopping him!" Sirius said this as if has not heard a worse thing in his life. "Prongs," he turned his head so fast that his hair flew everywhere, and a good amount ended up in his mouth. He didn't let that stop him. "Your son is becoming too much like you."

"Alright, Padfoot." James couldn't help but smile. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"Where would you be without me?" He went back to the position he found most comfortable; his head hanging off one armrest and his legs dangling off the others.

 **Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.**

 **"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.**

"Same reasons you would be mad to rob most banks?"

 **"Spells - enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the highsecurity vaults.**

"I'm the 'they' he's talking about." Sirius said. "And they are right."

 **And then yeh gotta find yer way - Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground.**

"It's even more under-er then the Underground."

 **Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."**

 **Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this,**

"Fuck what he likes. Burn his newspaper as he's reading it."

"What a waste of reading material…."

 **he'd never had so many questions in his life.**

 **"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.**

"It's nice to know that no matter how far you go in the future, some things never change."

 **"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could stop himself.**

 **"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister,**

"Woah," Peter said. "Dumbledore for Minister?"

"I would love to be in the room as it was brought up." Remus said, then dubbed his snooty, I'm-looking-down-at-you-from-my-three-golden-carriages voice. "Albus, my dear good man, how would you like the job of making propaganda and forcing poor people in more desperate situations?"

"Thank you for the offer, sir." Lily said in a …. shockingly good impersonation of Dumbledore. "But I'm going to have to turn it down. Frankly, I wouldn't want the reputation of ruining the wizarding world."

Peter looked so impressed that it was obvious he was a more word away from crowing her the best impersonator he's ever heard, and Sirius turned to James and said, "If you don't marry her, I will."

 **course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."**

"He has a school to run, you spineless bastard."

"He also has a country to run himself. He cares about what he's doing, evidently, but Merlin mate get a backbone."

 **"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?"**

"Government shit."

 **"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."**

 **"Why?"**

 **"Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."**

"Plus we need every reason possible to stay away from Muggles like the Dursleys."

 **At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.**

 **Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station.**

"Staring is rude."

 **Harry couldn't blame them.**

Sirius shook his head. "He just keeps getting worse and worse. I blame myself, of course."

"As anyone would." Lily said.

 **Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"**

"Is there any reason to have laws against showing magic to Muggles if we're just going to be this obvious about it?" James asked.

 **"Hagrid," said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"**

"I said that. Over here." Sirius waved, as if he was attempting to get the attention of Harry.

 **"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."**

 **"You'd like one?"**

 **"Wanted one ever since I was a kid - here we go."**

"Does Hagrid realize that dragons are, you know," Peter said. "stupidly dangerous?"

"I also imagine it would be significantly more dangerous for someone living in a wooden hut." Remus remarked.

"If anybody was qualified to take care of a dragon as a pet, it'd be Hagrid." James said.

"Or the people that work with dragons for a living."

 **They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time**

"Hagrid on a train." Lily said. "Can you imagine that?"

"Frankly, no." Sirius said James said.

 **Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.**

"It has how much its worth printed on them, but alright."

 **People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.**

"I would not recommend using a tent made of yarn."

" **Still got yer letter, Harry?" He asked as he counted stitches.**

"Knit one, pearl two and all that jazz."

 **Harry took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.**

" **Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."**

 **Harry unfolded the second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before,**

"It pays to be observant, Harry."

 **and read:**

 **HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDY**

"Are you going to read us the supply list?" Sirius asked.

"Do you not want me to?" Remus questioned right back.

"I read these every year, skip it."

"Unless he says something funny." Peter interjected.

Remus skimmed down until he saw more dialogue.

" **Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.**

"Why not? There's a lot of things you can buy in London."

"Just have to walk down the right alleyway and wait for the unpleasant man in the trench coat to approach you." Sirius said.

 **"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.**

 **Harry had never been to London before.**

"It's the same as every other city, you're not missing much."

 **Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way.**

"As long as he didn't forget how to walk it shouldn't be too much of a problem."

 **He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground,**

"Literally stuck?" Lily felt a pang of worry while also thought the image must have looked hilarious.

 **and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.**

"Yeah, but so did everyone else so that's not unusual."

 **"I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.**

Lily, Peter, and Remus shrugged. James and Sirius accepted that as an answer.

 **Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry had to do was keep close behind him.**

"It is very easy to not lose Hagrid." Sirius said, with an air of wisdom. "The trick is to make sure he doesn't lose you."

 **They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants**

"Hamburgers must be the only food Muggles eat."

 **and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them?**

"Yep." Remus said.

"You get used to the idea." Lily said.

 **Were there really shops that sold spells books and broomsticks?**

"Where else would we get our supplies?" Sirius asked. "The garbage?"

"Has Harry never bought a broomstick before?"

 **Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up?**

"I don't think they're smart enough to think of that."

"More importantly," Sirius pointed out, and everyone knew it wasn't going to be very important at all. "I _know_ they're not committed enough to the art of pranking to go in for the long-haul."

 **If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.**

"Hagrid does that." Peter said. "He could tell me that Hogwarts was actually on the moon this whole time and we never noticed, and I would believe him."

" **This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."**

"Famous for always smelling like vinegar, no matter what time of day or day of the weak."

 **It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there.**

"It would still be incredibly famous, and incredibly vinegar-scented even if you never find it."

"Schrodinger's vinegar scented bar." Remus said, deeply pleased of his horrible joke.

"Yes." Sirius agreed without understanding.

 **The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it.**

"I can see it." Sirius waved his arm in the air childishly.

Me too!" James copied him.

"No, I can see it!" Lily copied, but said it in such a different tone that Sirius and James felt like a joke went over their head. Remus and Peter tried to hold back a laugh.

 **Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.**

 **For a famous place, it was dark and shabby.**

"Maybe it's famous _for being_ dark and shabby."

 **A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald**

"Not just a little bald, but quite bald." Sirius said. "Every part of him is bald. Must be a swimmer."

 **and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in.**

"That would just make me run away in terror." Peter shuddered.

 **Everyone seemed to know Hagrid;**

"I guess we know where Hagrid spends all his time outside of Hogwarts now."

 **they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?'**

" **Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid,**

"Come on Hagrid, rent is due soon and I need ya'." Sirius said, in an accent.

 **clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and making Harry's knees buckle.**

"He's got his knees," Lily gestured to James "they can barely hold him as it is."

"That hurts," James grabbed at his chest in a very Sirius' manner. "In here."

" **Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at Harry,**

"Peering is rude, sir."

" **is this - can this be -?"**

"They're just confusing him for me, again." Sirius said.

 **The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.**

"This always happens." Sirius partially covered his face, acting embarrassed and humble. "I'm so sorry, Harry."

" **Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender,**

Lily quietly sung the lyrics "Hot Patootie, bless my soul," to herself, since she was reminded of the song existing but didn't feel like explaining it to the boys.

Of course, singing to yourself in a room full of teenage boys while pretending that nothing out of the normal happened will only result in weird looks and a thick, awkward cloud to overtake them all for a few minutes.

" **Harry Potter… what an honor."**

 **He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.**

" **Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back."**

 **Harry didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at him.**

"That's a lot of pressure to put on an eleven-year-old." Lily frowned.

 **The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.**

"This isn't exactly a situation to be beaming about, Hagrid."

"I disagree." Sirius said. "He's famous! After all of the shit he's been through, he gets something people try their whole life to get."

"But he's only eleven!" Lily argued. "He's going to grow up with a bunch of people knowing more about him than he knows about himself."

"So if he ever forgets something he can grab a random person and ask them." Sirius said.

"Can we not argue about this?" Remus hadn't moved from his position from when he was reading, hopefully an attempt to get them to let him continue.

Sirius leaned back in his chair, his face obviously showing that he felt like he won and there was nothing Lily could say to take away that feeling from him. She just huffed, and let the fact that this 'argument' means nothing and she should just let him 'win'.

 **Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.**

" **Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter,**

"Since when has an eleven-year-old been considered a 'Mr.'?" Peter tried to joke, to tamper down the tense atmosphere.

"Since he was put on a pedestal at such a young age," Lily said, because she's never lost an argument before and doesn't know when to quit.

"Since he became a hero to everyone in the wizarding world." Sirius snarked.

"Is everyone having a good time?" Peter asked.

"Alright," James spoke up. "You both bring up good points, and it's not an issue with a single right or wrong answer. We're not here to find any answer, so can we set this aside and get back to riffing a book from the future?" He sounded deathly serious and it made Lily and Sirius look down, ashamed of their behavior.

"I'm still more right." Sirius finished.

James looked at him like a father disappointed in his mature child and Sirius sunk deeper into his armchair.

 **can't believe I'm meeting you at last."**

" **So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."**

" **Always wanted to shake your hand - I'm all of a flutter."**

" **Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name,**

"I'm so sorry."

 **Dedalus Diggle."**

"Do we know him?" Remus asked, feeling something creep into the back of his mind.

"He's a seventh year," Lily said. "It sounds like he hasn't changed a bit."

"Huh," James said. "You would think I would have a memory of him, considering he sounds like he's amazing."

Lily shrugs.

 **"I've seen you before!" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."**

"Harry has better memories than any of us." Sirius said.

"To be fair, someone incredibly eccentric and obviously a wizard would be more memorable to someone who hasn't been to Hogwarts."

 **"He remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? He remembers me!" Harry shook hands again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.**

"He better be paying extra for this shite."

 **A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.**

 **"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."**

"It sounds like he's already been through a year at Hogwarts." Peter said sympathetically, thinking of the condition of Professor Ellis was in when he retired. You never really recover from some things. . .

 **"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you."**

" **What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?"**

 **"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell,**

"Dear Merlin, this poor man." Sirius shook his head. "He's not going to last the end of the year."

"You don't believe in the curse, right?" Lily asked, on the edge of patronizing.

"Well, I wouldn't phrase it as 'believing in' since it is undeniably real." He said. "But I wasn't referring to that, I was talking about how he's not in a condition to be handling a bunch of rude teenagers every day."

 **as though he'd rather not think about it.**

"I can barely stand the think about it." Sirius shook his head empathetically.

 **"N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?" He laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.**

"Must be something like we have in the Restricted Section." Peter said, thinking how it would not be the least bit surprising if there was a book on vampires there that, when opened, conjured a vampire in the same room with you.

 **But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself.**

"Greedy bastards."

 **It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid was able to make himself heard over the babble.**

"Which wasn't a very hard thing for Hagrid."

 **"Must get on - lots ter buy. Come on, Harry."**

 **Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.**

"It's amazing that such an unremarkable place is hiding one of the most remarkable." Lily smiled as the same warm, wonderfully nostalgic feeling filled everyone in the room.

 **Hagrid grinned at Harry.**

 **"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh - mind you, he's usually tremblin'."**

"Makes it slightly less impressive."

 **"Is he always that nervous?"**

 **"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience...**

"That is literally never a good idea." Remus said. "It's especially bad for a _defense against the dark arts_ teacher!"

 **They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag -**

"This bloke can't catch a fucking break."

 **never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now,**

"He should probably teach something else. Like muggle studies."

 **where's me umbrella?"**

 **Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.**

 **"Three up... two across he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."**

"Some of the best shite you ever seen is about to happen."

 **He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella. The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled -**

"What a weird word." Remus frowned.

 **in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.**

 **"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."**

The teens cheered and hollered, as per every time something they love and cherish is mentioned, but Lily did it noticeably more bittersweet.

"What's the hang-up - " James didn't know if he should end it with the formal Lily or if she would suddenly be okay if he started calling her Evans again. He decided to leave it hanging, which was possibly the most awkward way to end it.

"It's just," she sighed. "it should have been with his parents. Us." She shrugged her shoulders. Everyone else in the room understood, and silently agreed, and she felt bad about letting the mood of the room drop.

"You're damn right." Was all Sirius could say, and James leaned over to squeeze her shoulders in a comforting manner.

 **He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.**

 **The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring - Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.**

"A collapsible one sounds interesting." Peter said. The cauldron you buy is always charmed to be lightweight and easy to carry, but a one that collapses would save on a ton of space.

"How does the self-stirring one work if you have a potion that needs to change directions?" Lily asked.

"Magic should never be questioned." Sirius pointed a condescending finger at her.

"Oh, but muggle things should be?" She raised her eyebrows.

"At all times, yes."

"You're starting to sound like the Dursley's." James turned to him. In response, Sirius clutched his heart at the act of betrayal and started to make sounds like he was weeping.

"I thought you were my friend!" He yelled in emotional distress.

The room made a tissue appear on the table.

 **"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."**

"That's how shopping works, typically."

 **Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping**

"There's nothing quite like your first trip to Diagon Alley." James smiled. He remembered being much younger, at six, with his father. His father went down once a week for work, every week, but he previously hadn't brought James along thinking it would be boring for him. He was delivering his hair tonic to the stalls he has connections with, and chatting up possible new customers while he was there. James felt, in that moment, like he had a unique experience of exploring almost the entirety in his first trip there with his father.

Peter felt a lot like Harry in that moment - sometimes he still feels like there's so much for him to see, after all these years, that he needs a few more heads pointed in the cardinal directions. He stayed with his parents for the whole first trip, and even though they all felt out of their element. What he remembers most is the colors; he can't imagine it as anything else than sunny with a rainbow of products, signs, and robes.

Lily did something that she would never recommend other children to do, and she snuck away from her parents and explored on her own. She was only alone for about ten minutes, but it was enough to get into enormous trouble and fall in love with the world she has been invited in. She had wandered into the bookstore by herself, and she had grabbed a book on potions and she had been interested in finding out what she can do herself.

Remus had thought he would never be able to see it, and he wasn't sure what to expect. His father never told him anything about the magical world, certain that he wouldn't be able to experience it and he didn't want to get his hopes up. However, after the visit from Dumbledore, it was like a fountain had been turned on. He couldn't stop telling Remus everything he wanted to say for years, and as a result Remus felt like he had studied Diagon Alley extensively, but it wasn't even close to what he expected.

Sirius felt - it was different what Sirius felt. He has many memories of Diagon Alley, most unpleasant, but he has one shining example. At age ten, when he was just starting to get the flicker that things weren't all right at home, he had taken his brother for ice cream. Surprisingly, his father had left them alone and he went on to do business elsewhere. It was a taste of freedom. He could be improper, to have fun, to talk with his brother without a wall of formality. Once he had that taste, he chased it until it would run out, and it hasn't yet.

He doesn't talk to his brother at all anymore, but frequently he stops himself from wishing of another day like that with Regulus.

 **A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad..."**

"Good Merlin, they _are_ mad." Peter gasped.

"Well, someone is slaying these dragons and they want their labor to be well payed for."

 **A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever -"**

"Sure hope that's just a title." James mumbled to himself, thinking of his brand-new Nimbus he owns. It came as an unpleasant reminder of how unforgiving time can be.

 **There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes,**

"Which is slightly less weird to see being sold once given the proper context." Lily said.

 **tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...**

 **"Gringotts," said Hagrid.**

"Gotta love a man that knows what he wants."

 **They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -**

 **"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid**

"So casual."

 **quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry.**

" _Merlin_ Harry is short."

"He's eleven, Padfoot."

 **He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet.**

"You know what they say about a man and his feet." Sirius wiggled his eyebrows.

 **He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:**

 **Enter, stranger, but take heed**

 **Of what awaits the sin of greed,**

 **For those who take, but do not earn,**

 **Must pay most dearly in their turn.**

 **So if you seek beneath our floors**

 **A treasure that was never yours,**

 **Thief, you have been warned, beware**

 **Of finding more than treasure there.**

"They will find a dragon."

"Shut up, Sirius."

"You can never stop the truth."

 **"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.**

"If someone were so desperate to want to rob it in the first place, a poem will not do much to deter them." Remus said. "It's mostly there to make them look stupid when they get caught."

 **A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses.**

"Just another day in the workforce."

 **There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made for the counter.**

 **"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin.**

"Just because there's no price tag doesn't mean he's free."

 **"We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."**

 **"You have his key, Sir?"**

 **"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers.**

"Yuck."

"You have to clean out your pockets every once in a while, Hagrid." James shook his head.

"I think Fang like's his biscuits a little less furry."

 **The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.**

"So rude!"

 **"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.**

 **The goblin looked at it closely.**

 **"That seems to be in order."**

 **"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."**

"Despite what you may have heard, I do not actually know what."

 **The goblin read the letter carefully.**

 **"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have Someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"**

 **Griphook was yet another goblin.**

"Who would have thought a bank run by goblins would have so many goblins!"

 **Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets,**

"There's no saving those Hagrid, just throw them away." Lily said, disgusted.

 **he and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.**

 **"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.**

 **"Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously.**

"Can't blame the kid for asking." Sirius said. "Also, knowing that he's Prongs' kid, he's not going to give up until he's satisfied."

"Sounds about right." Lily said, thinking of her own history of . . . 'mystery solving'.

 **"Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."**

 **Griphook held the door open for them.**

"How polite."

 **Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised.**

"So sorry it's not to your expectations, Harry."

 **They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them.**

Lily whistled a tune that Remus and Peter recognized from an old, American muggle movie but the other boys just thought it was a weird tune.

 **They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and were off. At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember,** **left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.**

"He's going for a ride just as much as you are."

 **Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - -**

"But it couldn't be anything else, so here I sit, completely correct." Sirius said, lounging triumphantly.

Lily let him live in his fantasy.

 **they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.**

" **I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"**

"I don't think now is the right time to learn cave trivia."

 **"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid.**

"Technically correct, but that would only get half-credit."

 **"An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."**

 **He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.**

"They really don't like it if you get sick in front of them." Peter said, and they couldn't tell if it was from memory or an obvious assumption.

 **Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.**

 **"All yours," smiled Hagrid.**

Lily whistled impressively, Peter raised his eyebrows, and Remus tried not look like anything.

James blushed. "I didn't want to give off the impression that I was some rich, pampered arsehole." He said as an explanation on why very few of them knew the extent of his riches.

"Is that a dig at me?" Sirius asked.

"You do an alright job of that." Lily faced James. "You've mostly just come across as a jerk."

 **All Harry's - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking.**

"I'd like to see them try." James scoffed.

 **How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.**

 **Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.**

"Don't bother measuring it." Sirius waved a hand. "When we're this rich, you can just throw money at what you want."

"You don't get the title of rich when you're living off me." James teased.

 **"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough.**

"It doesn't make mathematical sense, but it's easy to remember."

 **Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh."**

"Safe in the safe." Lily giggled.

 **He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"**

"One speed only," said Peter.

" **One speed only," said Griphook.**

 **They were going even deeper now and gathering speed.**

"I thought it was one speed only."

 **The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.**

"Harry was willing to _die_ to find out what was at the bottom."

"How very Ravenclaw of him."

 **Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.**

"Makes sense, since there was no key."

 **"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.**

"I can do that too with one finger." Sirius said, and because he has no shame, he winked at Remus.

Remus grimaced as if disgusted.

Sirius threw his pillow at his face.

 **Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.**

"What?"

"Hold on, I think I lost my page." Remus said, moving back one previous page.

 **\- it simple melted away.**

"Fixed it." Remus said. "We wouldn't have had this problem if Padfoot had control over himself."

Sirius pouted like a child.

 **"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.**

 **"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.**

 **"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.**

"They should put that out in front instead of the poem."

 **Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor.**

"Don't underestimate anything magical related just because it looks harmless." James said.

 **Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.**

 **"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.**

 **One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money.**

"Places that sell stuff for the exchange of money."

 **He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life - more money than even Dudley had ever had.**

"More money than Dudley can count."

"That's not nearly as impressive."

 **"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts."**

"Drinking on the job, Hagrid?" Sirius raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

 **He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.**

 **Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.**

"Very fashion forward." Peter said. "I'm assuming, of course."

 **"Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact. "**

"Maybe he'll make a friend!"

 **In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.**

 **"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"**

 **"Yes," said Harry.**

 **"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own.**

"Yeah!" James and Sirius loudly agreed.

"I like this kid." James said.

 **I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."**

"I like this kid too." Sirius said.

 **Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.**

"We probably shouldn't like this kid." James said, and Sirius shrugged.

"First impressions can be wrong."

 **"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.**

 **"No," said Harry.**

 **"Play Quidditch at all?"**

 **"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.**

 **"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"**

"Most parents say the same thing, it doesn't mean much."

 **"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.**

"A lot of kids don't know what house they'll be in." Lily reassured her unborn child.

 **"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -**

"Frankly, that doesn't mean shite." Sirius said. "I think I may be related to this kid somehow."

"Still like him?"

"Chances are he's an arsehole, but he could be the black sheep. I'll hold out for a little longer."

 **imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"**

"They're right next to the kitchen." Peter said. "Hufflepuff's are the lucky ones."

 **"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.**

 **"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.**

"How sweet!"

 **"That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."**

 **"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"**

"He is moving dangerously into arsehole territory." Sirius narrowed his eyes. "

 **"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.**

"Same here."

 **"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."**

"I hate this brat." Peter said, which is harsh language for him to use outside his head.

"I repeated things like this kid is saying." Sirius showed some shame over his past actions. "I hate him too."

 **"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.**

 **"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer.**

"Fuck off."

 **"Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"**

"This will be about his third time putting his foot in his mouth."

 **"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.**

 **"Oh, sorry," said the other, not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"**

"Fuck you and fuck off."

 **"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."**

 **"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families.**

"So I don't think Harry made a lot of progress in friends." Lily tried to cut the tension.

"This racist kid is just repeating the racist stuff his racist family says." Sirius said, internally not knowing the limits of holding someone to what they're saying and giving a kid a break when this is all they know.

 **What's your surname, anyway?"**

"He's about to be in for a surprise."

 **But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear,"**

"Awe,"

 **and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.**

 **"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.**

"It's a large school, so hopefully not often."

 **Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).**

"Sounds delicious." Peter said. At the thought of food, he realized that he was getting hungry. The room was kind enough to suddenly put a tray of small sandwiches on the table and he grabbed one.

"We've been at it for a few hours now, wouldn't it be time for lunch?" Peter asked. "Not that I don't think this is delicious - " he added to prevent the room from becoming insulted, if that were possible.

"Just about." Remus said. "We can take another break when we finish the chapter."

 **"What's up?" said Hagrid.**

 **"Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote.**

"Most of the professors fucking hate those."

 **When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"**

"I don't think Hagrid is the best person to explain Quidditch."

"Better than asking me." Remus said.

 **"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know - not knowin' about Quidditch!"**

 **"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.**

 **"-and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."**

"Just like how a racist would."

 **"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were - he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk.**

"I think you're putting the focus on the wrong thing at the moment." Lily frowned. "You should probably point out that the kid was being an arsehole and is wrong about a lot of things."

 **You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles - look at yer mum!**

"Awe, thank you Hagrid."

 **Look what she had fer a sister!"**

"A complete bitch?" Sirius asked.

"A complete _and total_ bitch, actually." Lily corrected.

 **"So what is Quidditch?"**

"Back to the subject at hand."

" **It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like - like soccer in the Muggle world -**

"But typically, there's other sports provided at schools other than soccer."

 **everyone follows Quidditch -**

Remus awkwardly coughed.

 **played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sorta hard ter explain the rules."**

"It's okay to admit the fact you don't know Quidditch all that well; there's no shame in that."

" **And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"**

" **School houses. There's four.**

"Yet again, you are forgetting the secret fifth Hogwarts house."

"What?" Lily asked.

"The gay house." Sirius said. "Gayfeldorf."

 **Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but -"**

" **I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily.**

"You'll be the best damn Hufflepuff there ever was."

 **"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly.**

"Damn straight." Sirius nodded.

"Oh come on." Lily started. "Not everyone in Slytherin is always a bad person."

James, Remus, and Peter knew not to touch this argument with a ten-foot pole.

"A good majority are." Sirius defended his point.

"What if people stereotype you like you're stereotyping all Slythetins right now?"

"They did." Sirius said darkly. "They still do."

Lily huffed for a second, but before she made another argument Sirius went on.

"I'm not going to say that you're necessarily wrong." It sounded like it hurt Sirius to sound that mature. "Not everyone who is in Slytherin is evil, but once you're in that house it becomes easier to accept the evils that other people are doing."

Lily leaned back in her seat, and it was silent for a minute as they all contemplated it.

"Please don't make me be mature ever again."

 **"There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin.**

"Beatrice Marningale who left in 1923 was a Slytherin, and she wasn't evil." Lily said, and it was possibly she had previously researched for a Slytherin that wasn't evil for this precise argument.

"What did she do?" James asked.

"She wrote muggle harlequin novels, mostly." Lily said. "Got married four times."

 **You-Know-Who was one."**

 **"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"**

"Sadly. The bathrooms still smell like moldy arse because of him."

 **"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.**

 **They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk;**

"Sounds both hard to read and hard to hold."

 **books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all.**

"Sounds even harder to read."

 **Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.**

"Merlin, I want that book too Harry."

 **"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."**

"You'll find out in due time, my boy."

 **"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid.**

"Living with Dudley is a special circumstance that requires magic."

 **"An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."**

 **Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either**

"That shite is a scam." Lily said. "Gold can taint with the potions you're making."

 **("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages.**

"It smells like the house of every aunt named Ethel."

 **Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor;**

"Dip your hands in it, Harry."

 **jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).**

"Fucking Merlin's sodding balls those prices."

 **Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's list again.**

 **"Just yer wand left - A yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."**

"AWE! HAGRID!"

 **Harry felt himself go red.**

 **"You don't have to -"**

 **"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago,**

"Toads were ever in fashion?"

 **yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."**

"Owls are the most useful, just in general."

"A pet is not always supposed to be useful." James said. "Sometimes they're just there to be pets."

"I don't think you can have as much fun with a toad, though."

"Some people just like toads."

 **Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes.**

"Owls aren't supposed to have jewels for eyes." Sirius said. "I don't think it was an owl you got, Harry. Run for your life!"

 **Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl,**

"Ooh, how elegant." Lily said.

"If it's a female snowy owl." Remus agreed and corrected. "The male ones look on the doofy side."

"'Doofy.'" Peter giggled.

 **fast asleep with her head under her wing. He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.**

 **"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys.**

"Sometimes saying the obvious can bring back horrible memories of horrible people, Hagrid."

 **Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."**

"Only place in England, at least." James shrugged.

 **A magic wand... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.**

 **The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.**

"Merlin's wand." Breathed Peter, always impressed.

 **A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait.**

"That isn't going to end well."

 **Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library;**

"A library for wands, and not books."

 **he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.**

"Not secret magic but more like," Remus struggled for the words to find "subtle magic. Wandless magic."

 **"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.**

"That poor chair."

 **An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.**

 **"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.**

 **"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question.**

"I guess if you're the only place in the area that sells wand, there's not a lot of question as to is coming to your shop." James said. "Besides everyone."

 **"You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."**

Lily wordless brought out her wand, as if prompted, and it was indeed ten and a quarter inches, swishy, and made of willow.

 **Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink.**

"We all do."

 **Those silver eyes were a bit creepy.**

"I still think that those aren't natural." Sirius said as if he brought this up before.

"Do you want to ask him if they're natural?" Lily asked naively.

"I think I have better questions to ask." Sirius said. "Like 'do I want to die?' except I wouldn't ask that, because I know the answer is 'no'."

 **"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration.**

James, too, brought out his wand and it, too, looked exactly as it were described. He made a friendly gesture at Lily with his wand, and she copied it.

 **Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."**

 **Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.**

"I don't think this guy ever learned what personal space is."

 **"And that's where..."**

 **Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.**

"Or that touching people without their consent is rude and weird."

 **"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew.**

The person in question this time was not in the room, and they could not prove that statement.

 **Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..."**

 **He shook his head**

"You really can't blame yourself for what the Grand Master of Arsehole-iness did with the wand you sold him."

 **and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid. "Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"**

 **"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.**

 **"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.**

There was a short solitary pause as they heard that.

"I never knew that." Peter finally spoke up.

"He probably didn't want us to find out." James said, understanding very well why he wouldn't want them to know.

"That bendy comment seemed a bit ironic now." Sirius said.

 **"Er - yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.**

 **"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.**

 **"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.**

"Hagrid just gets more and more subtly badass as we find out things we most likely shouldn't ever find out."

 **"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now - Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"**

"That's a hard question to answer if you've never held a wand before."

 **"Er - well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.**

 **"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head.**

"I never found out why he needs all these measurements if it's the wand that chooses the wizard." Lily contemplated.

"It might all be just to make himself feel more useful."

 **As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons.**

"I also heard that there's wands that uses the feathers of hypogriffs." Peter said.

 **No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."**

 **Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own**.

"Maybe it's the tape measure that wants to feel useful."

 **Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.**

 **"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave."**

 **Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.**

"This is going to take a good minute." Sirius groaned, lounging even more relaxed in his chair.

 **"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try -"**

 **Harry tried - but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.**

"I wish I knew his system for narrowing down the wand, because I can't make any sense of it."

 **"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."**

 **Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.**

 **"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere -**

"Every single one of your customers is a tricky customer."

 **I wonder, now - - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."**

 **Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers.**

"Oooh! It's happenniinngg!" Sirius started to tap out an excited rhythm as he said that.

 **He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework,**

"Does that mean he's going to be a Gryffindor?"

 **throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... "**

"You would think that once he got his wand he would tone down on the weirdness."

 **He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious.."**

 **"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"**

"Whatever weird answer he has, it's your fault for asking." Sirius said.

 **Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar."**

 **Harry swallowed.**

"Oh." Peter felt . . . confused on what that could mean.

He wasn't the only one unsure, but no one liked the implications of what that could mean.

 **"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."**

"Merlin, this guy never stops giving you the creeps, does he?" Sirius shuddered.

 **Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand,**

"At least the price of wands hasn't changed."

 **and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty.**

"I refuse to believe that the Leaky Cauldron could ever be without people wanting drinks in a poorly cleaned mug."

 **Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry's lap.**

"What's the point of being inconspicuous anyway?" James sarcastically asked.

 **Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.**

 **"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.**

"There's always time for a bite to eat, if you only take a single bite." Peter said.

 **He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them.**

"I wish I had a Galleon for every time a hamburger is mentioned in this book." Remus said.

 **Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.**

"Like when you look into a bright light for too long and have to adjust to a normally lit room."

 **"You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.**

 **Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life - and yet - he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.**

 **"Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but I don't know anything about magic at all.**

"Oh Harry," Lily sympathized.

 **How can they expect great things?**

"Well, you have a large pool of magical power and smarts to draw from." Sirius said, unusually sincere and kind. This chapter was a surprisingly emotional draw for Sirius, and he wasn't sure if he liked it.

 **I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry - I mean, the night my parents died."**

 **Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.**

"He wears that more often than not."

 **"Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts,**

"Magical kids don't get that much of an advantage in magic when it comes to the actual work of magic." Lily said knowingly.

 **you'll be just fine. just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts - I did - still do, 'smatter of fact."**

"I'm glad Hagrid still got to experience Hogwarts even after he got expelled." James said. "It's something, at least."

 **Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys,**

"No, don't take him back there!"

 **then handed him an envelope.**

 **"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September - King's Cross - it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me...**

"Owls are weird that way."

 **See yeh soon, Harry."**

 **The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.**

Remus rose out of his chair, joints cracking, and they all followed for another break. They'll making good progress with the book - it's possible they'll finish it before they all leave for break.

It's completely different than how they all thought they were going to spend the last of their time of this year at Hogwarts, that's for sure.


End file.
